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THE   HISTORY   OF  MANKIND 


PriTited  "by  thfi  BibliograjMsclies  Institut,  leipzig. 

A    BOSJESMAN    FAMILY. 


THE 


HISTORY  OF   MANKIND 


BY 

PROFESSOR  FRIEDRICH   RATZEL 


TRANSLATED    FROM    THE    SECOND    GERMAN    EDITION 

BY 

A.    J.    BUTLER,    M.A. 
WITH   INTRODUCTION  BY  E.  B.  TYLOR,  D.C.L.,  F.R.S. 


WITH  COLOURED  PLATES,  MAPS,  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS 


VOLUME    I 


ILontion 
MACMILLAN    AND    CO.,    Ltd. 

NEW  YORK :    THE  MACMILLAN  CO. 

1896  '  '    '    '- 

^  '    '       t  W  [:  I  'l  Y 


^.^^^\%l. 


INTRODUCTION 

When  the  first  edition  of  Ratzel's  Volkerkunde  was  published  In  1885-88  it  at 
once  took  its  position  as  a  guide-book  to  the  study  of  Man  and  Civilization.  To 
those  beginning  anthropological  work  it  offered  the  indispensable  outline  sketches 
of  the  races  of  mankind,  especially  of  the  savage  and  barbaric  peoples  who  display 
culture  in  its  earlier  stages,  thus  aiding  the  great  modern  nations  to  understand 
themselves,  to  weigh  in  a  just  balance  their  own  merits  and  defects,  and  even  in 
some  measure  to  forecast  from  their  own  development  the  possibilities  of  the 
future.  So  good  a  judge  as  Professor  Virchow  wrote  of  the  work  on  its  first 
appearance,  that  since  the  time  of  Prichard  and  Waitz  no  such  extensive  attempt 
had  been  made  to  represent  our  knowledge  of  the  lower  races  of  mankind, 
immensely  augmented  as  this  has  been  by  the  researches  of  travellers,  the 
exhibition  of  savages  in  Europe,  and  the  information  opened  to  the  public  by  the 
great  museums.  The  present  English  translation  is  from  the  second  German 
edition  of  1894-95,  revised,  and  condensed  from  three  to  two  volumes.  Special 
mention  must  be  made  of  the  illustrations,  1 1 60  in  number,  which  in  excellence 
surpass  those  which  had  hitherto  come  within  the  range  of  any  work  on  Man 
intended  for  general  circulation.  These,  be  it  observed,  are  no  mere  book- 
decorations,  but  a  most  important  part  of  the  apparatus  for  realising  civilization 
in  its  successive  stages.  They  offer,  in  a  way  which  no  verbal  description  can 
attain  to,  an  introduction  and  guide  to  the  use  of  the  museum  collections  on 
which  the  Science  of  Man  comes  more^and  more  to  deperi^d  in  working  out  the 
tlieor}rorhurrian  devglopm'ent.  "Wbrlcs^ which  combine  this  material  presentation 
of  culture  with  the  best  descriptions  by  observant  travellers,  promote  most  the 
great  object  of  displaying  mankind  as  related  together  in  Nature  through^  its  very 
variation.  The  Rev.  J.  G.  Wood's  Natural  History  of  Man  and  Dr.  Robert 
Brown's  Races  of  Mankind  have  in  this  way  done  much  to  promote  anthropology. 
The  bodily  differences  between  races  can  only,  it  is  true,  be  represented  by 
descriptions  and  well-chosen  portraits,  minute  physical  classification  belonging  to 
a  region  on-ly^  accessible  to  anatomists.  The  classification  of  peoples  by  their 
languages  can  only  be  illustrated  by  examples  chosen  from  the  grammar  and 
dictionary,  so  as  to  make  plain  the  conclusions  of  comparative  philology  without 
the  elaborate  detail  of  a  linguistic  treatise.  But  a  fuller  though  less  technical 
treatment  of  the  culture-side  of  human  life  lies  more  readily  open.     The  material 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


arts  of  war,  subsistence,  pleasure,  the  stages  of  knowledge,  morals,  religion,  may 
be  so  brought  to  view  that  a  compendium  of  them,  as  found  among  the  ruder 
peoples,  may  serve  not  only  as  a  lesson-book  for  the  learner,  but  as  a  reference- 
book  for  the  learned. 

In  our  time  there  has  come  to  the  front  a  special  study  of  human  life  through  such 
object-lessons  as  are  furnished  by  the  specimens  in  museums.     These  things  used  to 

r  be  little  more  than  curiosities  belonging  to  the  life  of  barbarous  tribes,  itself  begin- 
ning to  be  recognised  as  curious  and  never  suspected  of  being  instructive.  Nowa- 
days, it  is  better  understood  that  they  are  material  for  the  student  "  looking  before 
and  after."  In  the  collections  which  enshrine  them  for  perpetual  knowledge,  they 
fulfil  in  two  different  ways  their  illustration  of  the  course  of  culture.  In  the  way 
which  is,  and  probably  always  must  be,  the  more  usual,  all  the  objects  which  go 
to  furnish  the  life  of  a  people  are  grouped  together,  each  group  finding  its  proper 
level.     Thus  in  the  Ethnographic  Galleries  of  the  British  Museum,  the  general 

'  condition  or  "  altogether "  (to  use  the  useful  old-fashioned  term)  of  Australians, 
Polynesians,  Negroes,  Tartars,  presents  more  or  less  definite  groups  of  objects  in 
which  art  and  habit  have  fixed  themselves  at  a  consistent  level.  Where  the 
rooting-stick  appears  among  the  Bushmen  as  a  savage  implement,  we  find  in 
Africa  an  iron  hoe  (vol.  i.  pp.  88,  89).  The  South  Sea  Islander  can  sketch  a  rough 
map,  and  ingeniously  ties  together  a  little  framework  of  sticks  (see  vol.  i.  p.  165) 
to  serve  as  sailing  directions  on  his  voyages  across  the  ocean  ;  this  bears 
no  discreditable  comparison  to  the  compass  and  measured  chart  of  civilized 
navigation.  The  group-pictures,  which  show  not  only  the  bodies  but  the 
conditions  of  a  rude  race,  illustrate  this  stratification  of  culture  in  a  suggestive  if 
rough  educational  way.  Here  in  the  frontispiece  of  the  first  volume  the  Bushman 
leans  against  a  rock,  which  also  conveniently  supports  his  knobkerry ;  in  his  hand 
is  the  pipe  of  antelope-horn  for  smoking  hemp  ;  one  child  is  splitting  a  bone  for 
marrow  with  a  stone  implement  (which,  however,  does  not  belong  to  modern 
times),  while  another  child  carries  a  bull-roarer,  as  the  Berlin  street-boys  did  lately 
till  the  police  stopped  the  whirling  of  this  mystic  toy  ;  the  wife  carries  ostrich- 
eggs  in  a  net,  and  round  her  neck  are  teeth  strung  as  charms,  while  her  glass 
beads,  made  probably  at  Murano,  show  the  beginnings  of  contact  with  the  civilized 
world  ;  the  small  bow  with  its  quiver  of  poisoned  arrows,  and  the  water-skin  which 
makes  life  possible  in  the  thirsty  desert,  fills  up  the  foreground  of  the  picture. 
Among  such  rude  tribes  the  simplicity  of  life  is  such  that  from  a  group  like  this, 
or  the  picture  of  a  farm  among  the  Igorotes  of  the  Philippine  Islands  (Plate  at 
p.  393),  which  shows  these  rude  negritos  engaged  in  their  various  occupations, 
j  something  like  a  real  representation  of  their  life  as  a  whole  is  possible.  Mbre 
advanced  states  of  civilization  become  too  complex  for  this  to  be  any  longer  possible. 
^  Among  barbaric  and  much  more  among  civilized  peoples,  a  mere  trophjT^ 
ordinary  weapons  and  utensils  {e.g.  Plate  at  p.  232)  is  enough  to  fill  the  picture, 
and  life  has  to  be  divided  into  many  departments  to  give  even  an  idea  of  what 
useful  and  artistic  objects  belong  to  each.      In  ethnographic  collections,  where  the 


INTRODUCTION 


productions  of  a  tribe  or  nation  are  grouped  locally  or  nationally  together,  the 
student  of  culture  has  before  him  the  record  of  similar  human  nature  and 
circumstance  working  so  uniformly  as  to  present  in  each  class  of  objects  evident 
formative  principles,  developed  in  various  degrees.  He  finds,  or  hopes  by  further 
research  to  find,  in  every  such  class  courses  of  gradual_  invention  resembling 
growth.  Thus  among  the  implements  of  different  regions,  the  withe-bound  stone 
hatchet  of  the  Australian  takes  an  early  place  in  the  series  among  whose  later 
members  are  the  bronze  hatchet  of  Egypt  and  the  steel  axe  of  modern  Europe. 
So  among  means  of  literary  record,  the  picture-writing  of  the  American  Indian 
presents  a  lower  form  than  the  mingled  pictures  and  phonetic  symbols  of  ancient 
Egypt,  which  again  lead  on  to  alphabetic  writing.  At  Oxford,  the  Pitt-Rivers 
Collection  in  the  University  Museum  is  devoted  to  the  material  evidence  of  the 
laws  of  development  of  art,  custom,  and  belief,  to  investigate  which  by  means  of 
specimens  brought  together  from  all  accessible  regions  and  ages,  and  arranged  in 
series  according  to  their  form  and  purpose,  has  been  one  of  the  lifelong  labours  of 
the  founder.  The  working  of  such  a  method  may  in  some  degree  be  shown  from 
the  illustrations  ojjthe^present  work.  The  Damara  bow,  though  no  longer  carried 
as  a  weapon,  retains  the  purpose  of  a  musical  instrument  which  is  gripped  by  the 
teeth  and  the  tense  bowstring  struck  with  a  stick  ;  other  tribes  improve  this 
primitive  stringed  instrument  by  fastening  to  the  wood  a  hollow  gourd  or  similar 
resonator  to  increase  the  sound,  and  from  some  such  stage,  by  making  the  bow  and 
resonator  in  one  piece  and  stretching  a  series  of  strings  across  the  bow,  there  arises 
the  African  harp,  a  typical  form  representing  the  primitive  harp  and  lute  forms  of 
the  world  (illustrations  of  this  will  be  given  in  the  next  volume).  Not  indeed  that 
such  progressive  improvement  is  the  sole  rule,  for  degeneration  is  active  also, 
as  when  low  culture  leads  to  inferior  adaptation  of  a  known  type.  It  has  been 
thought  that  the  rude  wooden  crossbow  of  the  Fans  of  the  Gaboon  (see  vol.  i. 
p.  86)  represents  an  early  rude  stage  in  the  development  of  the  weapon,  but  it  is 
on  the  contrary  a  feeble  copy  of  the  arbalest  carried  by  the  Portuguese  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  thus  interesting  as  an  example  of  degeneration. 

In  a  work  whose  value  depends  so  largely  on  its  illustrative  pictures,  decorative 
art  must  be  conspicuous.  It  is  well  that  it  should  be  so,  opening  out,  as  it  does, 
an  important  problem  which  we  are  obliged  in  great  measure  to  deal  with  empiri- 
cally from  imperfect  knowledge  of  its  principles.  Even  practically,  the  civilized  world 
has  no  exclusive  possession  of  the  secret  of  decorative  art.  There  abound  in  our 
shops  costly  things  made  and  sold  for  little  other  purpose  than  to  be  pretty, 
which  are  nevertheless  unsatisfactory  to  the  educated  eye.  On  the  other  hand, 
savages  or  barbarians,  though  looked  down  upon  as  of  low  intelligence,  produce 
objects  which  allmust  admit  to  show  artistic  taste.  The  reader  will  find  proof 
sufficient  of  this  in  the  pictures  of  carvings  and  mats  from  Papua  and  Polynesia 
(pp.  241,  244,  247,  249,  262).  Now  what  is  it  that  makes  some  lines  beautiful, 
and  one  more  beautiful  than  another  ?  It  will  be  said  in  answer  that  beauty  of  out- 
line dependFon  boldness,  firmness,  and  evident  intention  in^  drawing,  which  no  doubt 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


is  partly  true,  but  some  lines  are  stiff  and  ugly,  some  flowing  and  elegant,  and  again 
much  stiff  ornament  is  admirable,  and  flowing  patterns  may  flow  clumsily.    We  may 
respect  Hogarth  for  attempting  the  problem  of  the  line  of  beauty,  for  with  fuller 
knowledge  the  moderns  may  succeed  where  he  failed.      The  more  types  of  tasteful 
ornamentation  in  varied  styles  can  be  stored  in  our  minds  the  nearer  will  be  the 
approach  to  its  understanding.      It  is  encouraging  to  consider  what  progress  has 
been  made  of  late  toward  solving  not   so   much  indeed  the  direct   problem   of 
decorative  beauty,  as    the   intermediate    problem  of  the  origin   and   meaning  oT 
ornament.     The  researches  of  General  Pitt-Rivers  on  the  gradual  transformation 
of  human  figures  into  ornamental  designs,  and  the  derivation  of  coil,  wave,  and 
step  patterns  of  cultured  art  from  realistic  representations  of  cords  and  plaitings, 
gave  an  impulse  to  this  interesting  study  which  has  continued  to  be  worked  out 
in   the  museum  bearing   his  name,  with  added  series  such  as  ^Mr.   Everar^   im 
Thurn^  pegals   or  baskets    made   by  the  natives  of  British   Guiana,  where  the 
plaited  pictures  of  birds  and  monkeys  dwindle  into  graceful  patterns,  unmeaning 
unless  their  derivation  is  known.      The  Evolution  oj  Decorative  Art  by  Mr.  Henry 
Balfour,  the  curator  of  the  Pitt-Rivers  MuseUriT;  should  be  known  to  all  students 
taking  up  this  attractive  line  of  research.     Dr.  Ratzel,  whose   feeling  for  orna- 
mental design  is  very  definite,  has  reproduced  many  instructive  objects,  among 
which  mention  shall  only  be  made  here  of  the  Sandwich  Island  calabash  slung  in 
a  carrying-net,  placed  close  by  two  other  calabashes  without  nets,  but  appropriately 
decorated  with  patterns  which,  according  to  the  island  habit,  are  conventionalised 
pictures  of  the  absent  network  (vol.  i.  p.  243).      Such  evidence  goes  far  to  abolish 
the  old-fashioned  idea  that  the  patternswhich  have  been  the  pleasure   of  ages 
were  devised  by  ingenious  artists  out  of  their  inner  consciousness.      Looking  at 
them_as   originally  derive_d_from   real   objects,  we  jee   none   the   less   how  they 
develop  into  variety,  so  that,  notwithstanding  unity  of  principle,  eadi  tribe   or 
district    tends    to   form    patterns  of   its   own,  which   again   being    characteristif, 
are  patriotically  encouraged  as  local  badges.     Thus  every  Melanesian  and  Poly- 
nesian   knows  which  island  a  mat  or  carving  comes  from,  just  as  in   Switzerknd 
outlying  villages  are  still    known   by  their   special    embroidery.      When   one  of 
these  populations,  savage  or  civilized,  is  destroyed  or  reformed   into   uniformity"^ 
with  the  general  fashion  of  the  country,  a  local  school  vanishes,  and  even~tiie~- 
examples  of  its  productions  disappear.     So  natural  is  this  that^  it  is  a  pleasant 
surprise  when  they  come  back  sometimes^  from  a  hiding-place.      ft~" broughPback 
to  me  such  a  memory  when,  in  this  book  (vol.  i.  p.  256),  I  opened  on  the  cut  of 
the  "  covered  vessel  in  shape  of  a  bird,  from   the  Pelew   Islands."     About    1880 
I  had  chanced  to  go  to  the  county  parish  of  Holcombe  Rogus  in  Devonshire  to 
pay  an  afternoon  visit  to  the  vicar,  Mr.  Wills.     A  remark  of  mine  as  to  a   stone  ' 
implement  on  the  mantelpiece  led  to  the   unexpected   remark   that  there  were' 
things  upstairs  from  the  Pelew  Islands.     When    I   protested   that  nothing  from" 
thence  had  come  to  England  since  the  time  when  Captain  Wilson  brought   over 
"  Prince   Lee   Boo,"  whose   sad    story   is   told   in   the   once   familiar   poem,  it   was 


INTRODUCTION 


answered  that  the  late  Mrs.  Wills  was  of  Captain  Wilson's  family,  and  had  in- 
herited his  curiosities.  Before  that,  two  generations  of  children  had  played  havoc 
with  them,  but  in  the  attic  there  were  still  the  great  bird-bowl  and  the  inlaid 
wooden  sword,  and  the  rupak  or  bone  bracelet,  that  prized  ornament  of  chiefs, 
with  other  familiar  objects  figured  in  Keate's  book.  I  represented  that  they  ought 
to  be  in  the  national  collection,  and  not  long  after,  Mr.  Wills,  on  his  death-bed, 
ordered  that  they  should  be  sent  to  me.  They  duly  took  their  deserved  places 
in  the  ethnographic  department  of  the  British  Museum,  where  no  doubt  they  will 
long  outlast  the  amiable  but  hopelessly  degenerate  islanders,  the  picture  of  whose 
social  decay  has  been  drawn  with  such  minute  faithfulness  by  Kubary. 

^In  understanding  the  likeness  which  pervades  the  culture  of  all  mankind,  the 
great  difficulty  is  to  disentangle  the  small  part  of  art  and  custom  which  any 
people  may  have  invented  or  adapted  for  themselves,  from  the  large  part  which 
has  been  acquired  by  adoptirig  from  foreigners  whatever  was  seen  to  suit  their  own 
circumstances.  Original  invention  and  modification  of  culture  must  take  place 
somewhere,  but  to  localise  it  in  geography  and  chronology  is  so  perplexing  that 
anthropologists  are  fain  to  fall  back,  especially  as  to  the  more  sirnple  and  primitive 
developments,  on  the  view  that  they  arose  each  in  some  one  centre,  or  possibly 
more  than  one,  thence  propagating  jhemselyes  over  the  world.  Who  shall  say, 
for  instance,  where  and  by  whom  were  begun  the  use  of  the  club  and  spear  which 
are  found  everywhere,  and  of  the  bow,  which  is  found  almost  everywhere  ?  The 
problem  becomes  mqre_  manageable  as  it  passes  to  special  varieties  of  these 
simple  weapons,  and  to  appliances  whkh  are  more  complex  and  elaborate.  For 
though  as  yet  no  definite  rule  has  been  ascertained  for  distinguishing  similar  in- 
ventions which  may  have  arisen  separately,  from  the  travelling  of  one  invention 
from  place  to  place,  yet  at  any  rate  experience  and  history  lead  us  to  judge  that 
the  more  complex,  elaborate,  and  unfamiliar  an  art  or  institution  is,  the  more  i 
right  we  have  tb"c6nsider  that  it  was  only  devised  once,  and  travelled  from  this  ' 
its  first  home  to  wherever  else  it  is  found.  History  often  helps  us  to  follow 
these_lines  of  movement  which  have  spread  civilization  over  the  world,  while 
on  the  other  hand_lhe  tracing  of  thearts  through  the  regions  of  the  world  is 
among  the  most  important  aids_  to  early  history.  Thus  in  the  case  of  the 
Bushmen  already  mentioned,  mere  inspection  suggests  that  the  glass  beads  which 
reach  them  through  the  traders  are  to  be  traced  through  an  art  history  leading 
back  through  Phoenicia  to  Egypt,  while  the  dakka-pipe  is  a  record  not  of  native 
African" invenfion,  but  of  the  migration  of  the  deleterious  habit  of  hemp-smoking 
westward  and  southward  probably^ from  Central  Asia.      It  is  well  for  the  student 


to  cultivate  the  habit,  of  which  this  book  will  give  many  opportunities,  of 
endeavouring  to  separate,  in  the  inventory  of  life  among  any  people,  the  pro- 
ducts of  native  invention  from  the  borrowed  appliances  of  the  foreigner.  Thus 
in  the  war-dance  of  the  Sioux,  the  guns  and  iron-headed  tomahawks  bartered 
from  the  white  trader  figure  beside  the  more  genuine  drum  and  stone-headed 
club ;  and  the  swords  and  daggers  of  the  African  countries  show  at  a    glance 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


the   influence   of  Asia   which    has    spread    with    and    beyond    the  range    of   the 

Moslem  religion. 

}/  For  the  study  of  eariier^  stages  of^  social  Hfe,  and  even  of  morals  and  religion, 
with  their  liTanifold  bearing  on  the  practical'  problems  of  modern  life,jherejs 
no  more   useful   preparation   than,  familiarity  with  the  modes  in  which  m^to^ 

Trt^and' r^esentation are   developed   and   propagated.     The   same   underlying 

hmnan  instinct,  the   same   constancj^f  hmp_anj-aculty_  through  low   and  high 
stages,  the  same  pliability^' life lolhe  needs  of  outward  circumstances,  which 

'precedes  'the~cultured  state  where  circumstances  have  to  yield  to  the  needs  oF 
man,   thesame   adaptation   of  artificial    means   suggested  by   nature,  the   same 

.copying  by  the  whole  tribe  of  the  devices^  whkh   individuals  have  started,_and 
then  their  wider  diffusion  by  one  tribe  copying  from  another — these  actions  go  on 

\  throughout  the  human  race,  and  thejrinciples  we  learn  from  mere  things  may 
guide  us  in  the  study  of  men.  The  habit  of_constant  recourse  to  actual  objects  is 
of  inestimable  use  to  us  in  the  more  abstract  investigation  of  ideas.  Its  scope  is 
limited  j  y^t  as  we  have  to  depehd'briefly  on  verbal  description  for  our  knowledge 
of  the  habits  of  distant  and  outlandish  peoples,  their  social  condition,  their  rules 
of  right  and  wrong,  their  modes  of  government,  and  their  ideas  of  religion,  the 
sight  of  the  material  things  among  which  such  institutions  are  worked  out  gives 
a  reality  and  sharpness  of  appreciation  which  add  much  to  the  meaning  of  words. 
The  rude  hut  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  inhabited  by  the  natives  occupied  among  their 
scanty  appliances,  brings  the  race  before  us  in  a  framing  to  which  we  adjust, 
almost  as  travellers  among  them  may  do,  our  ideas  of  the  life,  morals,  and 
religion  of  the  isolated  savage  family.  So  the  models  or  pictures  of  the  huge 
village-houses  of  Malays  or  the  higher  American  Indians  enable  the  spectator  to 
understand  the  social  condition  of  the  communities  of  grouped  families,  patriarchal 
or  matriarchal,  to  which  brotherhood  and  vengeance,  communal  agriculture  andT 
tribal  war,  naturally  belong.  Thus  in  every  djrection„thfi_  material  furniture  of 
life,  taken  in  its  largest  sense,  gives  clues  to  the  understanding  of  institutions  as 
tools  do  of  the  arts  they  belong  to.  The  paraphernalia  of  birth,  marriage,  and 
death  among  the  American  Indians,  the  backboard  of  the  papoose,  the  whip  of 
the  initiation  ceremony,  the  beads  and  paint  of  the  bride,  the  weapons  and  orna- 
ments sacrificed  for  the  use  of  the  dead  man's  soul,  tell  in  outline  the  story  of  their 
rude  life.  The  great  totem-system,  which  binds  together  in  bonds  of  amity  the  tribes 
of  the  barbaric  world,  takes  material  shape  in  the  pictured  and  sculptured  animals 
which  decorate  the  mats  and  the  roof-posts  of  British  Columbia  with  commemoration 
of  the  myths  of  divine  ancestors.  In  half  the  countries  of  the  world  the  concep- 
tion of  the  soul  and  of  deity  is  best  to  be  learnt  from  the  rude  human  figures  or 
idols  in  which  these  spirits  take  their  embodiment  (see  pp.  301  sqq).  To  learn  what 
the  worshippers  say  and  do  to  the  idols,  and  what  the  indwelling  spirits  of  the  idols 
are  considered  to  do  to  the  worshippers,  is  to  obtain  a  more  positive  knowledge 
of  the  native  theology  than  is  to  be  had  from  attempts  to  extract  scholastic  defini- 
tions from  the  vague  though  not  unmeaning  language  of  the  savage  priest. 


INTRODUCTION 


It  is  especially  because  the  present  work  comes  under  the  class  of  popular 
illustrated  books  that  it  is  desirable  to  point  out  that  this  does  not  detract  from 
its  educational  value,  but  on  the  contrary  makes  it  good  for  providing  a  sjoHd 
foundation  in  ■  anthropological  study.  To  discuss  the  theoretical  part,,  attacking 
or  defending  Professor  Ratzel's  views  on  the  diffusion  of  the  human  species  over 
the  globe,  the  classification  of  mankind  by  race  and  language,  and  tfe  geography 
of  civilization,  would  be  to  go  outside  the  purpose  of  this  introduction.  Still  less 
is  it  the  dul;y  of  the  introducer  to  seek  out  errors.  He  has  simply  to  recommend 
a  foreign  book,  pointing  out_to  what  classes  of  readers,  an3  for  what  purposes,  it 
is  likely  to  be  useful.      It  should,  however,  be  clearly  understood  that  great  as  the 


progress  of  anthropology  has  been  during  the  last  half-century,  yet,  as  in  other 
subjects~modern~aFl:o  their  scientific  form  and  rank,  the  collection  of  the  evidence 
has  not  yet  approached  completion,  nor  has  the  theory  consolidated  jnto  dogmatic 
form^  In  the  next  century,  to  judge  from  its  advance  in  the  present,  it  will  have 
largely  attained  to  the  realm  of  positive  law,  and  its  full  use  will  then  be  acknow- 
ledged not  only  as  interpreting  the  past  history  of  mankind,  but  as  even  laying 
down  the  firsf  stages  of  curves  _o£  movement  which  will  describe  and  affect  the 
courses  of  future  opinions  and  in^kutions.  This  will  be  a  gain  to  the  systema- 
tising  of  human  life  and  the  arrangement  of  conduct  on  reasonable  and  scientific 
"principles.  It  istrue  that  such  results  may  be  accompanied  by  some  dwindling 
of  the  adventurous  interest^which  belongs  tojhe  early  periods  of  a  science,  and 
possibly  the  anthropologists  of  the  next  century,  rich  in  theoretical  and  practical 
knowledge  shaped  into  law  and  rule,  may  look  back  to  our  days  of  laborious 
acquisition  of  evidence  and  enjoyment  of  new  results  with  something  of  the  regret 
felt  by  the  denizen  of  a  colonial  town  in  looking  back  to  the  time  when  settled 
occupation  was  only  beginning  to  encroach  on  the  hunters'  life  in  the  wild  land. 

EDWARD    B.  TYLOR. 


TRANSLATOR'S    NOTE 

Mr.  James  Payn  has  recently  compared  the  translator's  functions  to  those  of  the 
typewriter,  and  in  many  respects  the  comparison  holds  good.  Both  are  expected, 
like  little  boys  in  the  nursery  code  of  etiquette,  to  be  ''  seen  and  not  heard  "  ;  that 
is  to  say,  each  is  expected  to  reproduce,  in  his  own  medium,  what  is  laid  before 
him  in  another,  and  say  nothing  about  it.  However,  the  present  translator,  with 
some  diffidence,  craves  leave  for  a  moment  to  depart  from  this  rule.  One  fault 
leads  to  another,  and  having  on  a  few  occasions  in  the  body  of  the  work  ventured, 
as  the  merest  outsider,  to  append  an  illustration  drawn  from  his  own  reading  or 
experience,  in  confirmation  or  otherwise  of  Professor  Ratzel's  views  and  statements, 
he  is  almost  compelled  to  make  himself  "  heard  "  once  more,  if  only  to  deprecate 
reproof  for  what,  now  that  he  looks  back  on  it,  seems  to  have  been  an  impudent 
intrusion  into  other  people's  domain.  It  appears  to  be  held  in  many  quarters  at 
the  present  day  that  a  man  cannot  know  anything  about  a  subject  unless  he 
knows  nothing  about  any  other  ;  and  the  "  expert "  is  perhaps  justly  intolerant 
of  Margites. 

On  one  other  point  a  word  of  apologia  must  be  said.  A  fashion  has  sprung 
up  among  the  learned  of  spelling  barbarous  names  according  to  a  system  of  their 
own,  made  it  would  seem  in  Germany,  but  so  far  as  can  be  judged  from  the 
present  work,  intended  chiefly  for  English  use.  In  this  matter  a  distinction  has 
to  be  made.  In  names  "transliterated"  from  a  language  with  old-established 
written  symbols  differing  from  our  symbols,  it  may  be  necessary  on  philological 
grounds  to  adopt  a  conventional  system  of  equating  letter  with  letter,  even  at  the 
risk  of  suggesting  to  the  English  reader  a  sound  quite  unlike  that  of  the  original 
word,  or  of  breaking  through  an  old  tradition.  It  may  be  all  right,  for  instance, 
to  spell  the  name  of  a  well-known  cricketer  so  as  at  once  to  make  the  ordinary 
newspaper -reader  pronounce  his  iirst  syllable  as  if  it  rhymed  to  "  man,"  and 
disguise  the  fact  that  he  is  namesake  to  the  Lion  of  the  Punjab.  But  in  the 
case  of  names  which  till  Europeans  heard  them  never  had  occasion  to  be  spelt, 
surely  in  a  popular  work  it  is  best,  whenever  possible  without  great  violation  of 
custom,  to  give  the  form  which  most  nearly  conveys  the  sound  from  an  English  eye 
to  an  English  ear.  It  would  be  pleasant  indeed  to  write  Otaheite  and  Owhyhee, 
stamped  as  they  are  with  the  seal  of  literature  ;  but  here  we  have  surrendered  to 
France,  and  it  is  hopeless  to  revive  the  old  forms.      In  some  cases,  however,  we 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


are  still  at  liberty  to  consider  our  own  countrymen.  Why,  for  instance,  write 
Tunguses,  which  nine  Englishmen  out  of  ten  will  rhyme  to  "  funguses  "  ;  when  by 
following  our  fathers  and  writing  Tungooses  we  at  least  give  some  approximation 
to  the  right  sound  ?  Again,  why  write  ShiUuks  for  the  people  whom  Gordon 
reasonably  called  Shillooks  ?  Other  nations  would  not  hesitate.  A  German 
writes  Schilluk ;  a  Frenchman  doubtless  Chilouques  ;  an  Italian,  Scilucchi ;  a 
Spaniard,  if  he  ever  needs  to  mention  them,  Xiluques.  Why  are  Englishmen 
alone  not  to  keep  within  their  own  "  sphere  of  influence  "  in  this  matter  ?  Forms 
like  tapu  and  tatu  may  be  all  very  well  in  scientific  periodicals,  but  taboo  and 
tattoo  are  the  English  words,  and  should  be  used  in  English  books. 

In  conclusion,  the  translator  has  to  express  his  best  thanks  to  two  experts,  who 
have  very  kindly  revised  the  proofs.  Mr.  Henry  Balfour  performed  this  most  neces- 
sary office  for  the  first  two  or  three  parts,  and  when  he  was  incapacitated  by  illness 
for  continuing  the  work,  Mr.  H.  Ling  Roth  was  good  enough  to  come  to  the 
rescue.  Thanks  to  his  careful  superintendence,  it  may  be  hoped  that  few  errors 
remain  in  the  text.  He  is  not  responsible  for  the  spelling  of  names,  nor  for 
mistakes  in  the  descriptions  of  the  cuts — about  some  of  which  Professor  Ratzel 
appears  to  have  been  misinformed.  These  will  mostly  be  found  corrected  in  the 
index. 


CONTENTS 

BOOK    I 

Principles  of  Ethnography 

SECTION  PAGE 

1.  The  Task  of  Ethnography      ...  ...                       3 

2.  Situation,  Aspect,  and  Numbers  of  the  Human  Race  .                                      5 

3.  The  Position  of  Natural  Races  among  Mankind  14 

4.  Nature,  Rise,  and  Spread  of  Civilization        .  .  20 

5.  Language        .                                        .  -30 

6.  Religion         .            .  ...         38 

7.  Science  and  Art          .  .             .                       65 

8.  Invention  and  Discovery         .                                        .  .76 

9.  Agriculture  and  Cattle-breeding  87 

10.  Clothing  and  Ornament                                                   .  93 

11.  Habitations    .            .  .       106 
y^2.  Family  and  Social  Customs                                                      .  .114 

13.  The  State       .            .  .             .       129 

BOOK    II 

The  American-Pacific  Group  of  Races 

A. — The  Races  of  Oceania 

1.  General  Survey  of  the  Group              ...  .             .       145 

2.  The  Races  of  the  Pacific  and  their  Migrations            ....  155 
•     3.   Physical  Qualities  and  Intellectual  Life  of  the  Polynesians  and  Micronesians  .                     185 

4.  Dress,  Weapons,  and  Implements  of  Polynesians  and  Micronesians  .  .        195 

5.  The  Negroid  Races  of  the  Pacific  and  Indian  Oceans             .  214 

6.  Dress  and  Weapons  of  the  Melanesians                                     .  .                                               223 

7.  Labour,  Dwellings,  and  Food  in  Oceania  .                                               238 

8.  The  Family  and  the  State  in  Oceania                                        .  ,                     267 

9.  Religion  in  Oceania    .  .                                300 

B. — The  Australians 

10.  Australia         ....  .             .                     333 

11.  Physical  and  Mental  Character  of  the  Australians       .             .  .              .                     337 

12.  Dress,  Weapons,  and  other  belongings  of  the  Australians  .             .                     349 

13.  The  Family  and  Society  in  Australia  .  .                                               365 

14.  The  Tasmanians          .                                        ...  .                     380 

15.  Religion  of  the  Australians  383 

C— Malays  and  Malagasies 

16.  The  Malay  Archipelago          .                         .                         •  ...                    391 

17.  Bodily  Conformation  and  Intellectual  Life  of  the  Malays       ...  393 

18.  Dress,  Weapons,  and  other  Property  of  the  Malays  .             .                                  405 

19.  The  Malay  Family,  Community,  State                                                    .  .             .                                  437 

20.  The  Malagasies            .  45^ 

21.  The  Religion  of  the  Malays  4^7 


Note. — In  some  cases  the  descriptions  of  Figures  given  in  the  following  List  will  be  found  to 
differ  from  those  which  occur  in  the  text.  Where  this  is  so  the  List  may  be  taken  as 
embodying  corrections  which  will  ultimately  be  made  in  the  text. 


ILLUSTRATIONS    IN    VOLUME    I 


MAP 
Map  of  the  Races  of  Oceania  and  Australasia 


To  face  page  145 


COLOURED   PLATES 
A  BosjESMAN  Family   .  .  .  .  . 

Weapons,  Utensils,  and  Ornaments  of  American  Indians 

Polynesian  Weapons  and  Costome  ....... 

Pattern  of  Polynesian  Tapa.     (From  Cook's  Collection  in  the  Ethnographical  Museum, 
Vienna)      .  .  .  .  ... 

Weapons  and  Utensils  from  Melanesia  and  Micronesia 

An  Australian  Family-Party  from  New  South  Wales 

SowEK  ;  A  Pile-Village  on  the  North  Coast  of  New  Guinea.     (After  Raffray) 

IGORROTE  Farm  in  Luzon  (Philippines).     (From  a  water-colour  drawing  by  Dr.  Hans  Meyer) 

Malay  Fabrics  and  Weapons  .  ..... 


Frontispiece 

To  face  page    65 

155 


19s 
232 
294 
344 
393 
427 


ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  TEXT 

PAGE 

Eskimo  bow  made  of  bones.     (British  Museum)  ........  6 

Fijian  double  canoe.     (From  a  model  in  the  Godefifroy  Collection,  Leipzig)         ....  8 

Sandili,  king  of  the  Gaikas ;  showing  the  Semitic  type  of  the  Kaffirs.     (From  a  photograph  by  G. 

Fritsch)       ............  13 

A  Galla  monk  :  Hamitic  or  Semitic  blend.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  collection  of  Pruner  Bey)  .  13 

Young  girl  of  the  Mountain  Daniara  tribe.  (From  a  photograph  belonging  to  the  Barmen  Mission)  .  16 
Steel  Axe  of  European  make  with  old  bone  handle,  from  New  Zealand.     (Christy  Collection)    .  .  18 

Ainu  beside  one  of  their  store-huts.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  pgssession  of  Freiherr  von  Siebold, 

Vienna)       ............  19 

Ambuella  Drum.     (After  Serpa  Pinto)      .........         21 

Igorrote  Drum  from  Luzon.     (From  the  collection  of  Dr.  Hans  Meyer)  .  .  .  21 

Queensland  Aborigines.     (From  a  photograph)    ......  .23 

Indian  Mirror  from  Texas.     (Stockholm  Ethnographical  Museum)  .  .  .  .  -29 

Owner's  marks  :  the  upright  column  from  the  Ainu  (after  Von  Siebold) ;  the  others,  rudimentary  writing 

from  the  Negroes  of  Lunda  (after  M.  Buchner)      .  .  .  .  •  •         3^ 

Melanesian  sea  spirit,  from  San  Christoval.     (After  Codrington)  ....  39 

Fetish  in  Lunda  :  purpose  unknown,  perhaps  to  avert  lightning.     (After  Buchner)  .  .  42 

Entrance  to  a  fetish  hut  in  Lunda.     (After  Buchner)         ...••••         43 

Wooden  idol  from  the  Niger.     (Museum  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society)         .  .  .  -44 

A  mummy  wrapped  in  clothing,  from  Ancon.     (After  Reiss  and  Stubel)  .  .  .  •         45 

Idols  from  Hermit  Island.     (Ethnological  Museum,  Berlin)  ......         46 

supposed  idols  representing  souls,  from  Ubudjwa.     (After  Cameron)      ...  .46 

3rave  of  a  Zulu  chief.     (After  G.  Fritsch)  ....  ...        48 

b 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Fish-headed  idols  from  Easter  Island.     (Christy  Collection) 

Magicians  of  the  Loango  Coast.     (From  a  photograph  by  Dr.  Falkenstein) 

Dice  and  amulets  of  a  Bamangwato  magician.     (Ethnographical  Museum  at  Munich) 

Masks  from  New  Ireland — one-eighth  of  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology) 

Cemetery  and  sacred  tree  in  Mbinda.     (After  Stanley)     .  ... 

Boat-coffin  from  Timorlaut.     (From  a  model  in  the  Ethnographical  Museum,  Dresden) 
Ornament  on  coco-nut  shell,  from  Isabel  in  the  Solomon  Islands.     (After  Codrington)    . 
Piece  of  bamboo  with  carvings,  from  the  New  Hebrides.     (After  Codrington)     . 
Plaited  hat  of  the  Nootka  Indians,  showing  eye-ornament.     (Stockholm  Ethnographical  Museum) 
Carved  clubs  from  Lunda.     (Buchner  collection  in  the  Munich  Ethnographical  Museum) 
Tobacco-pipe  carved  out  of  slate,  from  Queen  Charlotte  Islands,  British  Colombia.     (Berlin  Museum  of 
Ethnology)  ...  ... 

New  Zealand  tobacco-pipe.     (Christy  Collection) 

Ornamental  goblet  from  West  Africa.     (British  Museum) 

Chains  made  of  walrus-teeth,  from  Aleutia.     (City  Museum,  Frankfort  O.  M.)    .  .  .  . 

Kaffir  fire-sticks,  for  producing  fire  by  friction — one-fourth  real  size.     (Museum  of  the  Berlin  Mission) 
Wooden  shield  with  picture-writing,  perhaps  a  chief's  breast-plate,  from  Easter  Island.     (Christy  Col- 
lection) .  ......... 

Human  figure  and  medusa  in  walrus-ivory,  from  (?)  Tahiti.     (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum) . 

Shell  and  bone  fish-hooks  from  Oceania.     The  larger  one  on  the  right  from  the  north-west  coast  of 

America.     (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum)  ... 

Weapons  set  with  sharks'  teeth,  from  the  Gilbert  Islands.     (Munich  Ethnographical  Museum)   . 
Monbuttu  tobacco-pipe  carved  in  wood  and  ornamented  with  copper  wire — one-tenth  real  size.     (Christy 
Collection) .  .  ....... 

Carved  and  painted  figure  from  Dahomey.     (Berlin  Ethnographical  Museum) 

Zanza,  a  musical  instrument  used  over  a  great  part  of  Central  and  South  Africa  . 

Fan  warrior  with  crossbow.     (After  Du  Chailhi)  ........ 

Stick  used  by  Bushmen  in  digging  roots,  and  stone  weights  for  the  same.     (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology) 
Loango  negress  at  field-work.     (From  a  photograph  by  Dr.  Falkenstein)  .... 

Iron  hoe  from  Kordofan.     The  blade  is  also  used  as  currency— one-eighth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 
Axe  of  turtle-bone.     A  label  pasted  on  this,  in  writing  of  the  time  of  Captain  Cook,  describes  it  as  from 

the  Friendly  Islands.     (British  Museum)    .  . 

Woman  of  the  Azandeh,  or  Nyam-Nyams.      (From  a  photograph  by  Richard  Buchta)     . 
Princess  of  Unyoro,  dressed  in  bark-cloth.     From  a  photograph  by  Richard  Buchta) 
^'iIlage  chief  of  the  Loango,  with  wife  and  dignitary.     (From  a  photograph  by  Dr.  Falkenstein) 
Cap  made  of  a  palm-spathe,  from  Brazil.     (Munich  Ethnographical  Museum) 

Bawenda  children  belonging  to  a  mission  school.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Wange- 
niann,  Berlin)  ..... 

Fur  and  bird-skin  clothing  of  the  Ainu.     (Collection  of  Baron  von  Siebold,  Vienna) 

Woman  of  New  South  Wales.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Lieutenant  von  Bulow,  Berlin) 

Leg  ornaments  of  dogs'  teeth,  and  shell  armlet,  from  Hawaii.     (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum) 

Sandal  from  Unyoro.     (After  Baker) 

I,  2,  Stone  lip-plugs ;  3,  6,  necklaces ;  4,  armlet,  worn  by  the  Jur  tribes ;  5,  armlet ;  "7,  head-dress  of 

the  Shulis.     (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum)      .  .  .  _ 

Irenga  arm-ring,  with  sheath-one-fourth  real  size.     (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum) 
I.  Paddle-shaped  clubs,  probably  from  Fiji  ;  and  carved  adzes,  as  carried  by  chiefs,  from  the  Hervey 
Islands  (Munich  Ethnographical  Museum).     2.   Dagger  for  attaching  to  the  upper  arm,  from 
Lagos  (Christy  Collection,  London)  .... 

Modes  of  hairdressing,  Lovale.     (After  Cameron) 

V,'c5t  African  body-tattooing.     (From  a  drawing  by  Pechuel-Loesche) 

West  African  mode  of  filing  the  teeth.     (From  a  drawing  by  the  same) 

I.  Tortoise-shell  combs  from  Pelew-one-half  real  size  (Kubary  Collection,  Berlin).     2.  Azandeh  or 

Nyam-Nyam  shield— one-tenth  real  size  (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum) 
Caves  of  the  Bushmen.     (After  Fritsch)    .  . 

Tree-dwellings  in  South  India.     (After  Jagor) 

Fishing  village  on  the  Mekong.     (From  a  photograph)    ... 
The  so-called  '•■  Dwarf's  House '"  at  Chichen-Itza.     (After  Charnay) 
House  in  Central  Sumatra.     (After  Veth) 

Village  on  a  tongue  of  land,  Lake  Tanganyika.     (After  Cameron)  '. 

A  Zulu  family.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Wangemann) 
Interior  of  a  house  in  Korido,  New  Guinea.     (After  Raftray) 
Ashantee  drinking  cups  of  human  skulls.     (British  Museum) 


PAGE 
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74 
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76 

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85 


92 
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100 
100 

lOI 

102 


102 
103 
104 
104 

105 
107 
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no 
III 

112 
116 
127 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Human  bone  in  the  fork  of  a  branch  ;  a  cannibal  memento  from  Fiji.     (Leipzig  Museum  of  Ethnology)  129 

Zulu  chief  in  full  war-dress.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Wangemann)              .             .  130 

The  Basuto  chief  Secocoeni  with  his  court.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Wangemann)  132 

A  Dakota  chief     (From  a  photograph)    .             .                         ......  133 

Articles  belonging  to  Dyak  head-hunters  : — i.  Shield  ornamented  with  human  hair;  2.  Sword  and  knife ; 
3.   Skull  with  engraved  ornament  and  metal  plate  ;  4.   Basket  to  hold  a  skull,      i  and  2  probably 

from  Kutei ;  3  and  4  from  W.  Borneo.      (Munich  Museum)                         .                           .              .  135 

Kingsmill  Islander  in  full  armour.     (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology)           .  137 
Lango  chief  and  magician.     (From  a  photograph  by  Richard  Buchta)      .             .                                        .138 
Insignia,  ornamental  weapons,  and  drums  from  the  Southern  Congo  territory                    .                           -139 

Polynesian  clubs  and  insignia  of  rank                      .                                                     .                                  facing  145 

Araucanian  man  and  woman.     (From  a  photograph)        .                          .  146 

Bakairi  girl  from  the  Kulishu  river.     (After  Dr.  R.  von  den  Steinen)       ....  148 

Maori  girl.     (From  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Max  Buchner)    .             .  149 

Men  of  Ponape  in  the  Carolines.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album)  150 

Boy  of  New  Ireland.     (From  a  photograph)          .                                                                   ...  151 

Man  of  New  South  Wales.     (From  a  photograph)             .             .                                        .                           .  152 

Dyak  woman  of  Borneo.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Damann  Album)                             .                           .  153 
Bread-fruit  true  [Artocarpus  incisus) :  (a)  inflorescence,  {b)  fruit  .                                                                   .156 

Ta.ro  {Caladht?n  esculentatn) — one-half  natural  size            .                          .             .             .             .             •  iS7 

Sepulchral  monument  in  Ponape,  Caroline  Islands.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album)        .  160 

Outrigged  boat.  New  Britain.     (From  a  model  in  the  Godeffroy  Collection,  Leipzig)       .             .             .  161 
Boat  of  the  Mortlock  Islands,  with  outrigger  and  sail  of  rush-matting.     (After  a  model  in  the  Godeffroy 

Collection)  .......                                                     ...  162 

Boat  of  Nine,  Savage. Islands.     (After  a  model  in  the  Godeffroy  Collection)  163 

Boat  of  the  Hermit  Islands.     (From  the  same)      .             .             .  163 

Wooden  baler,  New  Zealand — one-sixth  real  size.     (British  Museum)  164 

Wooden  baler.  New  Zealand — one-fifth  real  size.     (British  Museum)        .  164 

Wooden  baler,  New  Guinea — one-fifth  real  size.     (British  Museum)         .                           .  165 

Stick  chart  from  the  Marshall  Islands.     (Godeffroy  Collection)    ....                           .  165 

Boat  of  the  Luzon  Tagals.     (From  a  model  in  Dr.  Hans  Meyer's  Collection,  Leipzig)  169 
Sumatran /ii-a/iz«.     (From  a  model  in  the  Munich  Ethnographical  Museum)         .             .  170 
Carved  boat  from  New  Zealand  ;  actual  length  8  ft.  2  in.     (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology)          .             -175 
I.   God  of  dances,  in  the  form  of  a  double  paddle,  Easter  Island  ;  2.  Toothed  club  from  Tutuila ;  3. 
Ancient  club  from  Tonga ;  4,  5.   Short  clubs  from  Easter   Island.      (Berlin  Museum  of  Eth- 
nology)       .             .                           .                                        ......  176 

Thakombau,  the  last  king  of  Fiji.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Herr  Max  Buchner)            .  177 
Rattan  cuirass,  throwing-sticks  of  dark  wood,  and  bark  belt,  from  Kaiser  Wilhelm's  Land.     (Berlin 

Museum)     .                           .                           .             .                                        .             .                           .  181 

Axes  from  the  D'Entrecasteaux  Islands — one-eighth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection)         .  182 

Carved  wooden  plaques,  used  as  stamps,  from  the  Fiji  Islands.     (Godeffroy  Collection)               .  183 

Jade  battle-axes  and  jade  hatchet,  insignia  of  chiefs,  from  New  Caledonia.     (Christy  Collection)  184 

Samoan  woman.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album)              .             .                                        .  186 

Women  of  the  Gilbert  Islands  and  Marshall  Islands.     (Godeffroy  Album)            .             .                           .  187 

A  Tongan.     (Godeffroy  Album)    .                           .  188 

A  man  of  Rotuma.     (Godeffroy  Album)                                                                      ....  188 

A  man  of  Pelew,  and  a  man  of  Yap  in  the  Carolines.     (Godeffroy  Album)                        .             .  189 

Dressed  skull,  from  the  Marshall  Islands.     (Godeffroy  Collection)                                       .             .             .  190 

Bamboo  flutes  from  Tahiti  and  Hawaii.     (British  Museum)           .  191 

Dancing  stilts,  from  the  Marquesas.     (Munich  Ethnographical  Museum)              .                                        .  192 
I.   Paddles  used  at  dances,  from  Easter  Island — one-thirteenth  real  size  (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology). 

2.  Wooden  dancing-stilts,  from  the  Marquesas — one-tenth  real  size  (Christy  Collection)  .  .  193 
Tattooed  Maoris.  (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Herr  Max  Buchner)  .  .  .  196 
Tattooing  instruments  from  the  Friendly  Islands — one-third  real  size.  (British  Museum)  .  197 
A  man  of  Ponape  in  the  Carolines.  (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album)  .  198 
Breastplate  of  shell  with  sling  of  human  hair — one-fourth  real  size.  (Christy  Collection)  .  .  199 
I.   Woman  of  Ponape.     2.  Woman  of  the  Paumotu  Islands.    (From  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album). 

3.  Women  of  the  Society  Islands.  (From  photograph  in  the  Damann  Album)  .  .  200 
Samoan  lady  with  hair  dressed  high.  (From  the  Godeffroy  Album)  .  .  .  201 
Man  of  the  Ruk  Islands.  (From  the  Godeffroy  Album)  .  .  .  .  203 
Combs  from  Tonga — one-fourth  real  size.  (British  Museum)  .  .  .  203 
Bone  comb  from  New  Zealand — one-third  real  size.     (British  Museum)  .....  203 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


PAGB 

Man  of  the  Ruk  Islands.     (From  the  Godefifroy  Album)  .  .  .  .        204 

Coco  and  Sago  Palms        ........  .  ■        205 

Obsidian  axes  from  Easter  Island— one-third  real  size.     (British  Museum)  .  .  .  .207 

Polynesian  implements  :   i.  Axe  from  Hawaii — one-sixth  real  size.     2.   Adze  with  carved  helve,  probably 
from  Hervey  Group  or  Paumotu  Islands.     3,  4.  Hatchets  from  the  Marquesas  and  Society  Islands 
— one-sixth  real  size.     5.  Obsidian  spear-head  from  Easter  Island — one-third  real  size.     6.  Weapon 
or  implement  from  Hawaii — one-fourth  real  size,   (i,  3,  4,  6,  Christy  Collection;  2,  S,  British 
Museum)    ............       208 

JIaori  chiefs  staCF  and  walking-sticks — one-eighth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection)  .  .  .209 

I.   Quiver  and  arrow,  said  to  be  from  the  Society  Islands — one-eighth  real  size  (Christy  Collection.) 
2.   Pin  used  in  weaving,  from  New  Zealand — two-sevenths  real  size  (British  Museum).     3.  Spear 
set  with  sharks'  teeth,  from  the  Gilbert  Islands — one-fifteenth  real  size  (Munich  Ethnographical 
Museum).     4.   Saw,  said  to  be  used  also  as  dagger,  of  ray-spine,  from  Pelcw— one-third  real 
size  (Berlin  Museum)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .210 

I.   Wooden  swords  from   Pelew  Islands — one-fifth  real  size  (British  Museum).     2.  Bow  and  arrow 
from  the  Friendly  Islands — one-third  real  size  (Christy  Collection).     3.  Saw  of  ray-spine,  said  to 
be  from  Pelew — one-third  real  size  (British  Museum.)     4.  Bone  arrow-head — real  size  (Christy 
Collection)  .......  .  ■       211 

Hawaiian  wicker-work  helmet — one-fourth  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum)  .....       212 

Small  weapons  with  sharks'  teeth  from  Tonga,  dagger  and  baler  from  Hawaii,  and  gourd  bottle  from 
New  Caledonia.     (Vienna  Museum.)  ...... 

(1-3)  Necklaces  of  shell  and  beans,  with  limpet-shells.     (4  and  5)  Ear-pendants,  with  dolphin's  teeth, 
(6  and  7)   Ear-buttons  of  whale's  tooth.     (8)   Necklace  of  tortoise-shell.     (9)   Neck  ornament 
(10)  Necklace.     (11)  Wooden  fillet  for  the  head.     (12)  Ear-button  made  of  a  ray's  vertebra, 
(13,  14)  Armlets  of  black  wood  and  whale's  tooth.     (15)  Neck  ornament.     (16)  Necklace  of 
shell-disks  and  whale's  tooth.     (1-7,  Marquesas  ;  8  and  15,  Friendly  Islands  ;  9,  Hervey  Islands 
10,  II,  Society  Islands  ;  12,  Easter  Island;  13,  14,  Hawaii;  16,  Nukuor. ) 
New  Guinea  girl.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Herr  W.  Joost,  Berlin) 
Man  of  New  Ireland.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album) 
Fijian  lady.     (From  Godeffroy  Album)     ...  ... 

Fijian  gentleman.     (From  Godeffroy  Album)        ... 
Woman  of  the  Anchorites  Islands.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album) 
Woman  of  the  Anchorites  Islands.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album) 

Musical  instrument  from  New  Ireland— one-third  real  size.     (Godeffroy  Collection,  Leipzig) 
I.  Spatula  for  betel-lime  from  New  Guinea — one-half  real  size.     2.  Drum  from  Pigville  in  New  Guinea 
—one-eighth  real  size  (Christy  Collection).     3.   Drums  from  Ambrym  in  the   New  Hebrides 
(after  Codrington)  ........ 

Carved  coco-nut  from  New  Guinea — one-half  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 
New  Hebridean  ornament  (enlarged)         ..... 

Bit  of  etched  design  on  a  coco-nut,  from  Isabel  Island  in  the  Solomons.     (After  Codrino-ton) 

Wigs  of  human  hair  worn  in  battle,  from  Vanna  Levu.     (Frankfort  City  Museum) 

Head-dress  like  an  eye-shade  from  New  Guinea— one-fifth  real  size.     (British  Museum) 

Fiji  warrior  in  a  wig.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album) 

Nose-ornament,  breastplate,  and  arm-ring  of  boar's   tusks,  from  New  Guinea— one-eighth   real  size! 

(Christy  Collection)  ••■•.. 

Shell  plaques  for  adorning  the  breast  and  forehead.     (Christy  Collection) 
Weapons  from  the  Admiralty  Islands.     (Christy  Collection) 

New  Caledonian  clubs  and  a  painted  dance  club  from  the  New  Hebrides.     (Vienna  Museum) 
I.   Bow  from  the  Solomon  Islands  (Berlin  Museum).     2.   Bow  and  arrows  from  North-west  New  Guinea 
—one-tenth  real  size  (Christy  Collection).     3.   Arrow-heads  from  the  Solomon  Islands  (Godeffroy 
Collection,  Leipzig)  ■  •  .  .  . 

Dagger  of  cassowary  bone,  from  North-west  New  Guinea— one-fourth  real  size. "   (Christy  Collection)   '       234 
I.  Carved  dance-shield  from  East  New  Guinea-one-fifth  real  size.     2.  Shield  from  Teste  in  New  Guinea 

— one-tenth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 

I.  Wooden  shield,  bound  with  plaited  rattan,  with  black  and  white  pattern,  from  Friedrich-Wilhelm's 

Harbour.     2.  Carved  shield  from  Hatzfeld  Harbour.     3.   Wooden  battle-shield  from  Astrolabe 

Bay.     4.  Wooden  battle-shield  from  Trobriand.     5.   Motu-motu  shield  from  Freshwater  Bay— 

one-twelfth  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology)        ...  216 

Wooden  dish  from  Hawaii.     (British  Museum)  .  '  o 

Mats  from  Tongatabu.     (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum)  ■  ■  ■  \a 

Stone  pestles  from  Hawaii— one-fourth  real  size.     (Cook  Collection,  Vienna  Museum)   .  240 

Earthenware  vessels  from  the  Fiji  Islands.     (Godeffroy  Collection,  Leipzig)        .  .  240 


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216 
217 
218 
219 
220 
221 


221 
222 
222 
223 
224 
224 
225 

226 
228 
230 
231 


235 


LTST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Carved  spatulas  for  betel-lime  from  Eastern  New  Guinea— two-sevenths  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 
Utensils  from  Hawaii  (Arning  Collection,  Berlin  Museum):    i.   Calabash-carrier  of  coco-nut  fibre. 

2,  3.    Calabashes  with  pattern  burnt  in,  stoppered  with  conus  shells.     ^.  Beaters  of  kauila  wood. 

5.  Stamping  sticks  for  tapa.     6.  Oil  lamps  of  lava.     7.  Decoration  for  chiefs,  a  sling  of  human 

hair  with  carved  cachalot's  tooth.     8.  Necklace  of  similar  teeth  from  Fiji.     9-12.  Straw  plaiting, 

probably  a  modern  importation.      1-8,  one-fifth  to  one-sixth  ;  9-12,  one-half  real  size 
Wickerwork  (basket,  pouches,  and  fly-whisk),  from  Tongatabu.     (Cook  Collection,  Vienna  Ethno 

graphic  Museum)    .......... 

Polynesian  fan  and  fly-whisks,  insignia  of  chiefs,  probably  from  Tongatabu.     (Cook  Collection) 
Wicker  fans  probably  from  Samoa.     (British  Museum)     ...... 

Wooden  bowl  for  food,  from  the  Admiralty  Islands — one-eighth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 

1.  Bamboo  water-vessels  from  New  Guinea — one-third  real  size.     2.  Carved  gourd  used  for  betel-box 

from  the  Trobriand  Islands — one-third  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 
Carved  bamboo  box  from  Western  New  Guinea — three-fourths  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 
Chisel  and  shell  auger,  from  New  Britain.      (Berlin  Museum)      .... 
I.   Fishing  trimmer  from  the  Solomon  Islands — one-eighth  real  size  (Christy  Collection).     2.   Floats. 

sinkers,  baler,  and  war-spears,  from  New  Caledonia  (Vienna  Museum) 
A  New  Zealand  trawl-net.     (Munich  Ethnographical  Museum) 

Shark-trap  with  wooden  float  from  Fiji.     (Berlin  Museum)  .... 

Smoked  fish  from  Massiha  in  East  New  Guinea — one-sixth  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum) 
Cuttle-fish  baits  from  the  Society  Islands — two-fifths  real  size.     (Christy  Collection  and  Berlin  Museum) 
Pots  and  implements  (the  two  calabashes  for  betel-lime)  from  the  Admiralty  Islands,  also  a  shell  horn — 

one-fifth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection)     .  .  .... 

Covered  vessel  in  shape  of  a  bird,  inlaid  with  shell,  from  the  Pelew  Islands.     (British  Museum) 
Another  vessel  of  the  same  material.     (British  Museum)  ..... 

New  Caledonian  hut  (Qu.  sacred)  after  a  model ;  doorposts  and  roof-ornament  supplied  from  originals 

in  the  Berlin  Museum         ......... 

Roof-ornaments  and  shoring-props  from  New  Caledonia.     (Vienna  Museum) 
Mats  from  Tongatabu.     (Cook  Collection,  Vienna)  .... 

House  in  the  Arfak  village  of  Memiwa,  New  Guinea.     (After  Raffray)    . 

Stool  from  Dorey  in  New  Guinea — one-seventh  real  size.     (Christy  Collection)  . 

New  Caledonian  head-stools.     (Vienna  Museum)  ...... 

Carved  and  painted  rafters  from  common  halls  {pais)  in  Ruk.     (Godeffroy  Collection,  Leipzig)  . 

I.  Gourd  bottle  from  the  D'Entrecasteaux  Islands — one-third  real  size.     2.  Head-stool  from  Yap — one 

fourth  real  size.     (Finsch  Collection,  Berlin)  ...... 

Chiefs  wife  of  Puapua,  Samoa.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album)  . 

Tongan  ladies.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album)      .  .  .... 

Old  Tongan  woman.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album)         ..... 

Princess  Ruth  of  Hawaii.     (From  a  photograph  belonging  to  Professor  Buchner,  Munich) 
Women  of  Ponape  in  the  Carolines.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album)  .... 

A  Tagal  village  :  Luzon  in  the  Philippines.     (From  a  photograph)  .... 

Fly-whisk,  from  the  Society  Islands — one-sixth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection)  . 

Fly-whisks  (chief's  insignia),  from  the  Society  Islands — one-fifth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 

Fly-whisk  (insignia  of  a  chief),  from  Samoa — one-eighth  real  size.     (British  Museum)     . 

Toy  paddles,  from  New  Zealand — one-sixth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 

Chief  of  Tae  in  the  Mortlocks.     (Godeffroy  Album)         ...... 

"  Kahile"  or  fly-flap,  carried  by  the  attendants  of  men  of  rank,  from  Hawaii.     (Christy  Collection) 
King  Lunalilo  of  Hawaii.     (From  a  photograph)  ...... 

Samoan  warrior  in  to/a-clothing.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album)  .... 

Ear-button  from  the  Marquesas  and  amulet  from  Tahiti — two-thirds  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 
Warrior  of  the  Solomon  Islands.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album)  .  .... 

Fijian  warrior.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album)      ....... 

Coco-palm  leaf,  as  a  token  of  peace,  from  Venus  Hook  in  New  Guinea ;  and  paddle-shaped  spoon, 

eight  feet  in  length,  for  stirring  food  at  feasts,  carved  with  a  Maori  design,  from  the  Normanby 

Islands.     (Finsch  Collection,  Berlin)  ....... 

Sacrificial  knife,  available  also  as  an  instrument  of  torture,  from  Easter  Island — one-half  real  size. 

(Berlin  Museum)    .......... 

Human  lower  jaw  set  as  an  arm-ring,  from  New  Guinea.     (Christy  Collection)  . 

Ancestral  image  {Korvar)  from  New  Guinea — one-fourth  real  size.     (British  Museum)   . 

A  Fiji  Islander.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album)  ..... 

I.  Sacred  drum  with  carving  from  High  Island,  Austral  Group — one-fourth  real  size  (Christy  Collection) 

2.  Stick  calendar  of  the  Ngati  Ranki  tribe  in  New  Zealand  (British  Museum) 


PAGE 
241 


242 


THE   HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Charms  made  of  human  bone,  votive  bunches  of  hair,  and  turtle  skull,  from  a  temple  in  the  Admiralty 

Islands — one-fifth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection)  .... 
Ancestral  images  from  Easter  Island— one-tenth  real  size.     (Munich  Museum)    . 

Carved  post  from  a  house  from  New  Zealand.     (Christy  Collection)         .  .  .  •  • 

Idols  carved  in  wood— one-tenth  real  size.   (London  Missionary  Society's  Collection,  now  British  Museum). 

I.   From  Rarotonga,  Hervey  Group.     2.   Rurutu,  Austral  Group.     3.   From  Aitutaki,  Hervey 

Group 
Sacred  place  in  Dorey,  New  Guinea.     (After  Raffray)      . 
Love  charm  from  New  Guinea— one-fifth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection) 
Article  employed  in  Melanesian  rites,  for  holding  objects  of  use  in  magic— one-half  real  size.     (Berlin 

Museum)    .  .  ... 

Human  figure  of  shells  and  hermit-crabs,  used  as  a  temple-ornament  in  New  Ireland— one-eighth  real 

size.     (Berlin  Museum)  •  ..... 

Child-mummy  on  the  bier  used  for  burial,  from  Torres  Straits— one-sixth  real  size.      (Berlin  Museum) 
South  Australian  native  women.     (From  a  photograph)  ...... 

Eucalyptus  Forest  in  South  Australia.     (From  the  account  of  the  voyage  of  the  "  Novara  ") 
Marsilia  Druminondi  ....  .... 

Queensland  girl.     (From  a  photograph  by  C.  Giinther)    . 

Young  Queensland  man.     (From  a  photograph  by  C.  Giinther)  .... 

Native  of  New  South  Wales.     (From  a  photograph)         .... 

Billy  Bull  and  Emma  Dugal,  natives  of  South  Australia.     (From  a  photograph) 

Message-sticks  with  picture-writing,  from  West  Australia— one-third  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum) 

Woman's  apron  of  emu  feathers.     (Berlin  Museum)  .  .  ... 

Wooden  belt,  said  to  be  Australian,  but  perhaps  from  the  New  Hebrides — one-fourth  real  size.     (Berlin 

Museum)     ...  .  .  ... 

Necklace  of  kangaroo  teeth,  probably  from  West  Victoria — one-sixth  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum) 
Womrteras  or  throwing-sticks  of  the  Australians — one-fifth  real  size.     (Berlin   Museum  and  British 

Museum)    ...  ... 

Wooden  spears,  mostly  from  North  Australia  ;  the  second  and  third  from  the  right  are  fish-spears — one^ 

fifth  real  size.     (British  Museum  and  Berlin  Museum) 
New  South  Wales  men,  showing  breast  scars.     (From  a  photograph) 
Bamboo  bow,  from  Torres  Straits  Islands — one-thirteenth  real  size.     (British  Museum) 
Arrow-head   from   New   Guinea,   Torres   Straits — fourth -fifths   real   size.      (Dresden    Ethnographical 

Museum)     .  ..... 

Stone  axes ;  the  three  above  from  North  Australia,  the  lower  from  Queensland  or  Victoria — one-sixth 

real  size.     (Berlin  Museum) 
Boomerangs  and  boomerang-shaped  clubs.     The  stick  in  the  middle  is  of  uncertain  use — one-tenth  real 

size.     (British  Museum  and  Berlin  Museum)  ..... 

Axes  of  stone  or  horse-shoe  iron  from  Queensland— one-fifth  real  size.     (British  Museum) 
Stone  club,  said  to  be  Australian,  possibly  from  New  Britain.     (British  Museum) 
North  Australian  with  spears,  axe,  and  club.     (From  a  photograph) 
Queensland  canoe.     (Godeffroy  Collection,  Leipzig)         ... 
Striking  and  throwing  clubs— one-eighth  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum) 
New  South  Wales  men,  showing  breast-scars.      (From  a  photograph) 
Australian  bags  of  woven  grass— one-sixth  real  size.     (British  Museum)  . 
Opossum  rug  ;  one-eighth  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum)     . 
New  South  Wales  women  and  child.     (From  a  photograph) 
Queensland  girls,  one  showing  "  scar-tattooing."     (From  a  photograph) 
Young  Queensland  man  with  "  scar-tattooing."     (From  a  photograph) 
Melanesian  axes,  clubs,  and  hammers.     (British  Museum) 
New  South  Wales  woman  with  "  scar-tattooing."     (From  a  photograph) 
Austrahan  magic-sticks.     (Vienna  Museum)  .... 

\i'illiam  Lanney,  the  last  Tasmanian.     (From  a  photograph) 
Truganina,  the  last  Tasnianian  woman.     (From  a  photograph) 
7i.ustraliau  shields .... 

Australian  "  bull-roarers  "—one-fourth  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum) 
A  Battak  of  Sumatra.     (From  a  photograph) 
A  Dyak  of  Borneo.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Damann  Album) 
Weapon   used  by  watchmen  in  Java  to  catch  persons  running   amok. 

Collection) . 
A  Calinga  of  Luzon  in  the  Philippines.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Damann  Album)    . 
Tabongs,  v/ith  Rejang  characters,  from  Sumatra— four-fifths  real  size.     (Munich  Museum) 


305 
306 
310 


(Stockholm   Ethnographical 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Magic  staves  of  the  Battaks,  used  especially  for  weather-magic,  and  also  borne  in  war — one-eightli  real 

size.     (Leipzig  and  Dresden  Museum)        .  .  •  ■  403 

A  Calinga  woman  of  Luzon.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Damann  Album)  406 

Toangos  of  Northern  Sumatra.     (From  a  photograph)      ...  .  4^7 

Tangoi  or   South-East  Bornean  head-dress — one-third  and  one-seventeenth  real  size.      (Frankfort 

City  Museum)  ....  ...  408 

Hats  worn  by  chiefs  of  Kutei  tribes  in  Borneo.     (Munich  Museum)  .  .  409 

Igorrote  tattooing  :  a,  b,  designs  on  the  calves  of  the  legs  ;  c,  d,  on  the  stomach  ;  e,  front  view  ;  /,  back 

view  of  a  .Swrz'^ ;  ^,  a  woman's  arm.     (From  drawings  by  Dr.  Hans  Meyer)        .  .  .       410 

Igorrote  necklaces,  with  (a)  tweezers  for  pulling  out  hair ;   (b)  pendants  of  crocodile  teeth — one-third 

real  size.     (From  Dr.  Meyer's  Collection)  ...  .  .  411 

Ring  worn  by  the  Igorrotes  on  the  upper  arm  when  dancing — one-third  real  size.     (From  the  same)      .       411 
Malay  weapons :   I,  2.   Hat  and  shield  from  Mindanao,  in  the  Philippines.     3.  Quiver  with  poisoned 
arrows   from   Celebes.     4.    A  champion's  shield  from   Solor.     5.    Sword   from    Gorontalo   in 
Celebes.     6.  Mandaii  of  the  Kahayan  River  Dyaks.     7.  Outfit  from  Ombai.     8.   Spears  from 
Java.     (Dresden  Collection)  ....  .  .  412 

Bows  and  arrows  of  the  Negritos  in  Luzon — one-twelfth  real  size.     (Dr.  Meyer's  Collection)      .  .       413 

Bow  from  Sulu  of  Asiatic  origin,  and  Negrito  harpoon — one-twelfth  real  size.     (Dresden  Collection)  414 

Blow-gun,  arrows,  and  quiver,  from  Borneo — one-fourth  real  size.     (Stockholm  Museum)  .  414 

Blow-gun,  small  quiver,  and  spears  of  the  Kahayan  Dyaks  of  South  Borneo  ;  bow,  arrows,  and  quiver 

from  Poggi.     (Munich  Museum)    .  .  .  .  415 

Mandaus  or  swords,  krisses,  and  knives  :    i ,  from  South  Celebes ;    2,  from  the  Batang-lupar  Dyaks  ; 
3,  from  Java ;  4,  from  Gilolo  ;  5,  from  Java  ;  6,  from  the  Kahayan  Dyaks  ;  7,  from  Mentawei ; 
8,  from  the  Rejangs  of  Sumatra — one-sixth  real  size.     (Munich  Museum)  416 

Krisses  :  i,  from  Celebes  ;  2,  said  to  be  from  Bali — one-fourth  real  size.     (Munich  Museum)  418 

Dagger  from  Borneo — one-fifth  real  size.     (Royal  Museum,  Leyden)       .  .  .       419 

I,  Sling  and  sheath  of,  z,  Igorrote  chopping-knife.     3.    Guinan  hatchet,  from  Luzon — one-sixth  real 

size.     (From  Dr.  Hans  Meyer's  Collection)  .....  .       419 

Igorrote  and  Guinan  spears  and  shields — one-tenth  real  size.     (From  Dr.  Hans  Meyer's  Collection)       .       420 
Spears  and  shields — i  and  7,  from  Nias  ;    2,  from  Mentawei ;    3,  4,  6,  from  West  Borneo  ;    5,  from 

Gorontalo;  8,  from  Borneo.     (Munich  Museum)  .  ...  .       421 

Shield,   blow-gun,    spear,    and   swords   of   the   Torabjas   in    Central    Celebes  —  one-sixth    real    size. 

(Frankfort  City  Museum)   .  .  .  .  .  .  422 

Mail-coats  worn  by  the  Dyaks  of  South-East  Borneo        .  .  .  423 

Malay  utensils  :   i.   Comb  from  Timor.     2.  Knife  from  the  Philippines.     3.  Sickle  from  Java.     4.   Cow- 
bells from  Sumatra.     5.  Brasier  and  rice-pot  from  Java.     6.  Basket  from  Celebes.     7.   Rice  basket 
from  Java,   for  cooling  steamed  rice  in  the  cover.     8.  Brass  pipe  of  the  Battaks.     (Dresden 
Ethnographical  Museum)    .  .  ....  424 

A  house  in  Sumatra.     (From  a  model  in  the  Dresden  Museum)  .  425 

Plough  used  by  the  Triamans  of  Bencoolen.     (Dresden  Museum)  .  425 

Agricultural  implements  used  by  the  Igorrotes  :    I.   Rice-knife,     z.  Digging-stick  (i,  one-half ;  2,  one- 
tenth  real  size).     (From  Dr.  Meyer's  Collection)  ......       426 

Hoes  from — l,  Singapore  ;  2,  Sumatra — one-fourth  real  size.     (Munich  Museum)  .  .  .       428 

Battak  hoes  from  Sumatra — one-seventh  real  size.     (Leipzig  Museum  of  Ethnology)  429 

Javanese  buffalo-cart.     (From  a  photograph)        .  ...  430 

I.  Wooden  tureen  and  spoon   from  Luzon  —  one-third  real  size  (from  Dr.  Meyer's  Collection),     z. 

Sumatran  saddle  (Dresden  Museum)  .....  .  .       431 

Dish-cover  of  armadillo  scales  from  Sumatra — one-tenth  real  size.     (Stoclcholm  Museum)  432 

Dish-cover  from  South-East  Borneo.     (Stockholm  Museum)  ....  432 

I.   Bamboo  betel  and  tobacco  boxes  from  West   Sumatra — one-third   real  size   (Munich  Museum). 

2.   Igorrote  spindle — one-third  real  size  (from  Dr.  Meyer's  Collection)  .  .  .       433 

Tobacco  pipes  used  by  the  Igorrotes  and   Guinansof  Luzon  —  two-thirds  real  size.     (Dr.   Meyer's 

Collection).  ........  434 

Carved  wooden  sirih  box  from  Deli,  East  Sumatra — one-fourth  real  size.     (From  a  drawing)     .  .       434 

I.   Malay  loom  (from  a  photograph).     2.   Sack  carried  by  the  Igorrotes  of  Luzon — one-eighth  real  size. 

(Dr.  Meyer's  Collection)     ......  .  -435 

Basket  of  a  Dyak  head-hunter,  with  half  a  skull  hanging  on  it.     (Munich  Museum)  .  .       448 

Small  head-basket  used  by  Guinans  of  Luzon— one-third  real  size.     (Dr.  Meyer's  Collection)  449 

Chief  and  dignitary  of  Nias.     (From  a  photograph)  ...  .  450 

Malagasy  of  Negroid  type.     (From  a  photograph  in  Pruner  Bey's  Collection)      .  454 

Malagasy  of  Negroid  type.     (Same  source)  ....  ■       455 

Sakalava  musical  instrument— one-third  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum)  .  .  45^ 


THE  HISTORY  OP  MANKIND 


Hova  guitar  and  powder-horn.     (Dresden  Museum) 

Malagasy  necklace  of  carved  horn.     (Missionary  Society's  Museum) 

House  of  a  Hova  chief.     (From  the  Globus)  ... 

Fenced  farm-house  in  Imerina,  Madagascar.     (After  Ellis)  .... 

Rice-mortar  and  paddle  from  Madagascar.     (Stockholm  Ethnographical  Collection) 

Madagascar  hubble-bubble,  in  the  African  style — one-fifth  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum) . 

Drawing  of  a  herd  of  cattle,  on  the  bamboo  drinking-cup  represented  on  opposite  page.   (Berlin  Museum) 

Woven  pouch  from  Madagascar — one-half  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum)    .... 

Hova  drinking-cups  of  bamboo,  used  also  for  tobacco-boxes — one-half  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum) 
Antananarivo,  the  Hova  capital.     (From  a  photograph)  ...... 

Rainitnalavona  and  Rainilaiarivona,  two  Prime  Miriisters  of  Radama  H.      (After  Ellis)  . 
Igorrote  ancestral  image — one-twelfth  real  size.     (From  Dr.  Meyer's  Collection) 
Sacred  jar,  probably  from  Borneo — one-sixth  real  size.     (Leyden  Museum) 

Wax  figure  of  Buffalo  ;   perhaps  an  amulet  of  the  Guinans — one-half  real  size.     (From  Dr.   Meyer 
Collection)  .......... 

Talisman  from  North  Borneo  and  ancestral  image  from  Nias.     (Dresden  Museum) 

Rosary  with  amulet  from  Madagascar — one-half  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum) 

Rainitsontsoraka — a  Christian  martyr  in  Madagascar.     (After  Ellis)        .... 


457 
458 

459 
460 
461 
461 
462 
462 
463 
464 
465 
468 
470 

471 
473 
479 
480 


BOOK  I 
PRINCIPLES    OF    ETHNOGRAPHY 


§  I.  THE  TASK  OF  ETHNOGRAPHY 

Geographical  conceptions  and  historical  considerations  of  which  account  has  to  be  taken  in  dealing  with  our 
subject — Mankind  a  whole — The  task  of  ethnography  is  to  demonstrate  the  cohesion  of  the  human  race. 

Our  business  in  this  work  is  to  impart  a  knowledge  of  mankind  as  we  find  it 
to-day  throughout  the  earth.  Owing  to  the  long-established  practice  of  con- 
sidering with  any  attention  lio  races  save  the  most  progressive  and  most  highly 
civilized,  until  it  is  from  these  almost  exclusively  that  we  form  our  notion  of  man- 
kind, and  of  their  doings  that  make  up  the  history  of  the  world,  it  becomes  the 
duty  of  ethnography  to  apply  itself  all  the  more  faithfully  to  the  neglected 
lower  strata  of  humanity.  Besides  that,  its  aim  must  also  be  to  take  up  this 
conception  of  humanity  not  in  a  merely  superficial  way,  just  so  far  as  the  races 
have  grown  up  in  the  shade  of  the  dominant  civilized  peoples,  but  to  trace 
actually  among  these  lower  strata  the  processes  which  have  rendered  possible  the 
transition  to  the  higher  developments  of  to-day.  Ethnography  must  acquaint 
us  not  only  with  what  man  is,  but  with  the  means  by  which  he  has  become 
what  he  is,  so  far  as  the  process  has  left  any  traces  of  its  manifold  inner 
workings.  It  is  only  so  that  we  shall  get  a  firm  grasp  of  the  unity  and  com- 
pleteness of  the  human  race.  With  regard  to  the  course  that  our  investigation 
must  follow,  we  have  especially  to  remember  that  the  difference  of  civilization  /v 
which  divides  two  groups  of  mankind  may  bear  no  kind  of  relation  to  the 
difference  of  their  endowments.  This  will  be  the  last  difference  which  we  shall 
have  to  think  of;  the  first  points  to  consider  will  be  differences  in  development 
and  surroundings.  We  shall  therefore  bestow  a  thorough  consideration  upon 
the  external  surroundings  of  the  various  races,  and  endeavour  pari  passu  to 
trace  the  historical  development  of  the  circumstances  in  which  we  find  them 
to-day.  The  geographical  conception  of  their  surroundings,  and  the  historical 
consideration  of  their  development,  will  thus  go  hand  in  hand.  It  is  only  from  >/ 
the  combination  of  the  two  that  a  just  estimate  can  be  formed. 

Our  growth  in  intelligence  and  culture,  all  that  we  call  the  progress  of 
civilization,  may  better  be  compared  with  the  upward  shoot  of  a  plant  than  with 
the  unconfined  flight  of  a  bird  ;  we  remain  ever  bound  to  the  earth,  and  the  twig 
can  only  grow  on  the  stem.  Human  nature  may  raise  its  head  aloft  in  the  pure 
ether,  but  its  feet  must  ever  rest  on  the  ground,  and  the  dust  must  return  to  the 
dust.  Hence  the  necessity  of  attention  to  the  geographical  point  of  view.  As 
for  historical  considerations,  we  can  point  to  races  which  have  remained  the  same 
for  thousands  of  years,  and  have  changed  their  place,  their  speech,  their  physical 
appearance,  their  mode  of  life  not  at  all,  their  religion  and  their  knowledge  only 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


superficially.  Herodotus  tells  us  about  a  race  of  Troglodytes,  who  dwelt  near  trie 
Garamantes,  the  inhabitants  of  the  modern  Fezzan.  They  were  active  and  swift- 
footed,  and  spoke  a  language  almost  unknown  beyond  their  own  boundaries. 
Here  we  have  Nachtigal's  Tebus  or  Tedas,  who  to  this  day  inhabit  the  natural 
caverns  in  their  rocks,  are  renowned  far  and  wide  for  activity  and  fleetness  of  foot, 
and  speak  a  language  which  has  hardly  extended  itself  beyond  the  walls  of  their 
rocky  fortress.  Thus  for  2000  years  at  least,  and  for  all  we  know  much  longer, 
they  have  lived  in  just  the  same  way.  They  are  to-day  no  poorer,  no  richer,  no 
wiser,  no  more  ignorant,  than  they  have  been  these  thousands  of  years.  They 
have  acquired  nothing  in  addition  to  what  they  possessed  then.  Each  generation 
has  repeated  the  history  of  the  one  before  it,  and  that  repeated  its  predecessors  ; 
as  we  say,  they  have  made  no  progress.  They  have  always  been  men  with  certain 
gifts — strong,  active,  having  virtues  and  defects  of  their  own.  There  they  stand,  a 
fragment  of  bygone  ages.  In  the  same  space  of  time  we  have  emerged  from  the 
darkness  of  our  forests  on  to  the  stage  of  history  ;  we  have  made  our  name,  alike 
in  peace  and  war,  honoured  and  dreaded  by  all  nations.  But  have  we  as  individuals 
undergone  any  so  great  change  ?  Are  we  in  physical  or  intellectual  power,  in 
virtue,  in  capacity,  any  further  ahead  of  our  generations  of  ancestors  than  the 
Tubus  of  theirs  ?  It  may  be  doubted.  The  main  difference  lies  in  the  fact  that 
we  have  laboured  more,  acquired  more,  lived  more  rapidly,  and  above  all,  have 
kept  what  we  have  acquired  and  known  how  to  use  it.  Our  inheritance  is  larger, 
fuller  of  young  life  ;  and  therefore  a  comparison  of  national  positions  gives  us  a 
higher  standing  among  mankind,  and  indicates  too  how  and  why  we  have  become 
what  we  are,  and  what  road  we  must  take  in  order  to  advance  a  stage  farther. 

Throughout  all  national  judgments  we  find  unmistakably  as  a  fundamental 
fact  the  feeling  of  individual  self-esteem  causing  us  to  take  by  preference  the 
unfavourable  view  of  our  neighbours.  We  must  at  least  try  to  be  just ;  and  the 
study  of  mankind  may  aid  in  that  direction,  impressing  upon  us  as  it  does  the 
important  principle  that  in  all  dealings  with  men  and  nations  we  ought,  before 
forming  a  judgment,  to  consider  that  all  their  thoughts,  feelings,  and  actions  bear 
an  essentially  graded  character.  In  one  stage  or  another  anything  may  happen, 
-  and  mankind  is  divided  not  by  gaps,  but  by  steps.  The  task  of  ethnography  is 
therefore  to  indicate,  not  in  the  first  instances  the  distinctions,  but  the  points  of 
transition,  and  the  intimate  affinities  which  exist ;  for  mankind  is  one  whole, 
though  very  variously  cultured.  And  if  it  cannot  be  too  often  proclaimed  that 
a  nation  consists  of  individuals,  which  are  and  remain  in  all  its  operations  its 
ultimate  elements,  there  is  yet  so  great  a  conformity  of  disposition  among  these 
individuals  that  the  thoughts  which  go  forth  from  one  man  are  as  certain  to  find 
an  echo  in  others,  if  they  can  succeed  in  reaching  them,  as  the  same  seed  is  certain 
to  produce  like  fruits  in  like  soils. 

But  the  tracing  of  the  road  above  mentioned  is  of  great  importance. 
Elementary  ideas  have  an  irresistible  power  of  expansion,  and  there  is  no  reason 
in  the  nature  of  things  why  they  should  come  to  a  stop  at  the  hut  of  a  Kaffir  or 
the  fireplace  of  a  Botocudo.  But  the  obstacles  which  hinder  or  delay  their  travels 
are  endless  ;  and  besides,  as  they  arise  from  life  and  accompany  life,  they  are  like 
all  life,  changeable.  Herein  is  a  main  cause  of  the  differences  among  races  and  of 
a  mass  of  ethnological  problems.  One  may  even  say  that  in  the  geographical  dis- 
tribution of  mankind  to  begin  with,  and   then  in  the  manner  in  which  they  have 


SITUATION,  ASPECT,  AND  NUMBERS   OF   THE  HUMAN  RACE  5 

acquired  culture  and  the  means  of  culture  from  the  production  of  fire  up  to  the 
loftiest  ideas  of  the  historical  nations,  lies  the  key  to  the  history  of  primitive  man. 
We  can  conceive  a  universal  history  of  civilization,  which  should  assume 
a  point  of  view  commanding  the  whole  earth,  in  the  sense  of  surveying  the  history 
of  the  extension  of  civilization  throughout  mankind  ;  it  would  penetrate  deep  and 
far  into  what  is  usually  called  ethnography,  the  study  of  the  human  race.  For 
tjie  further  inquiry  reaches  into  the  depths  of  prehistoric  peoples  and  those  that 
are  outside  of  history,  the  more  will  it  meet  in  every  sphere  and  on  every  level  of 
civilization  with  essentially  the  same  single  form,  which  long  ago,  before  the 
conditions  existed  for  the  development  of  numerous  separate  centres  of  civilization, 
was .  imparted  by  one  race  to  another  over  the  earth ;  and  this  it  wih  regard  as 
in  close  connection  with  mankind  of  to-day,  with  the  race  which  has  raised  all 
ifg  great  new  creations  upon  that  common  foundation,  of  which  many  a  fragment 
still  remains  unaltered  in  its  hands.  At  no  distant  future,  no  one  will  write  a 
history  of  the  world  without  touching  upon  those  peoples  which  have  not  hitherto 
been  regarded  as  possessing  a  history  because  they  have  left  no  records  written 
or  grav^  in  stone.  History  consists  of  action  ;  and  how  unimportant  beside 
this  is  TOe  question  of  writing  or  not  writing,  how  wholly  immaterial,  beside  the 
facts  of  doing  and  making,  is  the  word  that  describes  them.  Here  also  ethno- 
graphy will  show  the  way  to  juster  notions. 


§  2.  SITUATION,  ASPECT,  AND  NUMBERS  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

The  inhabited  world — The  races  of  the  fringe — East  and  West — Old  and  New  Worlds — North  and  South — 
The  Ethiopian  region — Mutual  influence  of  Northern  and  Southern  races — Insular  character  of  lands — 
Importance  of  seafaring — Water  on  the  face  of  the  globe — Unity  of  the  human  race — The  number  and 
laws  of  mankind — Movements  of  races — Extinction  of  native  races  through  contact  with  cultivation,  and 
by  themselves — Racial  distinctions — Half-breeds. 

The  human  race  inhabits  countries  and  islands  in  the  temperate  and  torrid 
regions  of  the  earth  ;  some  par1?>are  found  in  the  frigid  zone  of  the  northern 
hemisphere.  Its  place  of  abode  forms  a  zone  of  varying  breadth,  lying  between 
the  extreme  latitudes  of  80°  north  and  55"  south.  As  regards  the  two  great 
oceans,  the  northern  shores  of  the  Pacific  (where  Asia  and  America  come  within 
fifty  miles  of  each  other)  form  part  of  the  inhabited  region,  as  also  a  broad  band 
in  the  niiddle,  remarkable  for  the  abundance  of  its  habitable  islands.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Atlantic,  until  the  Scandinavian  colonisation  of  the  Faroes  and 
Iceland,  formed  a  broad  gap  in  the  belt  of  human  habitation.  We  can  thus 
distinguish  in  the  inhabited  world,  the  surface  of  which,  not  counting  seas,  may 
be  taken  at  about  fourteen  millions  of  square  miles,  northern  and  southern  borders 
formed  by  the  uninhabitable  ice-deserts  of  the  polar  regions,  eastern  and  western 
borders,  between  which  lies  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  The  races  dwelling  in  these 
confines  look  out  into  emptiness,  and  have  not  neighbours  on  every  side,  but 
when  their  settlements  have  been  pushed  far  forwards,  find  themselves  in  an  isolated 
position  ;  whence  a  lack  in  their  case  of  ethnographical  interest.  On  the  other 
hand,  some  groups  of  races  are  so  situated  as  to  have  enjoyed  the  important 
advantages  of  an  intermediate  position  ;  such  are  some  of  the  races  that  we  meet 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


with  in  the  Pacific,  especially  toward  its  northern  border,  in  the  districts  bordering 
on  the  Mediterranean,  in  Central  America.  From  the  position  and  form  of  the 
inhabited  world,  it  is  clear  that  the  northern  hemisphere  contains  a  larger  number 
of  persons  than  the  southern  ;  that  it  offers  wider  districts  to  open  up,  with  more 
sides  of  contact,  of  more  various  endowments,  and  therewith  richer  possibilities ; 
in  short,  that  in  position,  form,  and  dimensions,  it  has  from  early  time  had  all 
the  advantages  as  regards  the  development  of  humanity. 

The  distribution  of  man,  and  equally  that  of  plants  and  animals,  is  based,  in 
the  northern  hemisphere,  on  interdependence  ;  in  the  southern  on  separation.  If 
we  look  at  mankind  as  a  whole,  we  can  see  that  its  northern  members  lie  in  a 
widespread  mutually  operative  connection  ;  its  southern  in  remote  separation.  If 
we  look  at  the  races,  we  find  the  Negroids  belonging  to  the  south,  the  Mongoloids 
and  Whites  to  the  north.  Civilization  has  reached  its  highest  developments  north 
of  the  equator.  We  shall  find  similar  contrasts  in  ethnography  ;  for  example,  the 
bowless  races  belong  to  the  southern  groups,  whereas  in  the  north  we  find  bows 
and  arrows,  not  only  all  over  a  broad  zone,  but  on  fundamentally  the  same  model, 
from  Lapland  to  East  Greenland  and  Mexico.  ^ 


Eskimo  bow  made  of  bones  (British  Museum). 

The  wide  gap  which  the  Atlantic  Ocean  opens  in  the  zone  of  habitation  has 
the  effect  of  producing  "  fringe  "-lands.  Although  a  brisk  intercourse  from  north 
to  south,  together  with  thickly-peopled  regions  at  the  back,  and  more  favourable 
climates,  have  rendered  these  far  less  ethnographically  destitute  than  the  regions 
towards  the  poles,  we  still  find  that  in  Africa  the  highest  development  has  been 
reached  on  the  east  coast,  in  America  on  the  west,  that  is  on  the  inner  sides  or 
those  farthest  from  the  Atlantic.  The  population  of  Africa  has  undoubted  affini- 
ties with  that  of  Asia,  but  shows  no  trace  of  any  relations  with  America.  But 
this  connection  extends  farther,  beyond  the  limits  of  the  mainland  of  Asia  to  the 
great  Asiatic  islands  ;  it  forms  a  great  region  of  civilization  between  the  northern 
and  southern  borders,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  western  counterpart  of  that 
more  easterly  region  extending  across  the  Pacific  into  America.  The  great  mark 
of  distinction  between  the  two  portions  lies  in  the  use  or  non-use  of  iron.  In  the 
north,  indeed,  the  western  region  encroaches  upon  the  eastern  ;  but  the  contrast 
between  north  and  south,  ever-increasing,  remains  persistent  past  the  point  where  it 
crosses  the  boundary  between  East  and  West.  In  their  intersection  we  find  the  ex- 
pression of  a  great  difference  in  antiquity  between  the  former  classification  which  is 
mainly  anthropological,  and  the  latter  which  is  ethnographical.  In  the  later  develop- 
ment of  races  iron  has  unquestionably  played  an  important  part.  The  boundary 
between  countries  which  do  and  do  not  use  iron  corresponds  with  those  of  other 
important  regions  of  ethnographic  distribution.  Where  there  is  no  iron  cattle- 
breeding,  the  staple  of  which  is  oxen,  buffaloes,  sheep,  goats,  horses,  camels  and 
elephants,  is  also  unknown  ;  pigs  and  poultry  also  are  seldom  bred  in  lands 
without  iron.     The  distinction  in  political  and  social  relations  goes  far  deeper.      In 


SITUATION,  ASPECT,  AND  NUMBERS   OF   THE  HUMAN  RACE  7 

America,  Oceania,  and  Australia  we  have  a  much  older  stage  of  development : 
group -marriage,  exogamy,  mother- right,  and  clan -division  ;  in  Europe,  Africa, 
and  Asia,  the  patriarchal  system  of  the  family,  monogamy,  states  in  the  modern 
sense.  Thus  among  mankind  also  east  and  west  stand  over  against  each  other. 
America  is  the  extreme  east  of  the  human  race,  and  thus  we  may  expect  to  find 
there  older  stages  of  development  than  in  Africa  and  Europe,  the  extreme  west. 

The  distribution  of  races  affords  a  far  less  simple  picture.  The  Negroid  is 
indeed  essentially  a  southern  race.  Its  northern  limit  is  in  Africa  formed  by  the 
desert  ;  continued  in  Asia  by  lofty  mountains  ;  reaches  its  only  important  extension 
beyond  the  northern  tropic  in  the  angle  of  the  Indus,  and  retreats  in  Oceania  to 
the  south  side  of  the  equator.  Thus  we  have  a  southern  domain,  belonging 
essentially  to  the  geographical  eastern  hemisphere,  of  which  the  largest  territories 
lie  compact  and  altogether  between  the  tropics  and  in  the  south  temperate  zone. 
In  addition  to  their  southern  situation  they  are  affected  by  the  peculiar  features 
of  outline  and  surface  which  here  prevail.  The  geographical  opposition  between 
north  and  south  exists  of  course  all  the  earth  over  ;  but  as  a  factor  in  ethno- 
graphical or  anthropological  distinctions  it  concerns  only  the  so-called  Old  World 
and  the  parts  adjacent,  a  fact  which  has  a  large  share  in  producing  the  great 
variety  in  the  appearance  and  form  of  men  as  we  find  them  on  this  side, 
embracing  every  stage  of  development  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  In 
America,  on  the  contrary,  we  find  one  race  both  north  and  south,  and  no  ethno- 
graphic distinctions  of  the  magnitude  which  North  and  South  Africa,  North  and 
South  Asia,  or  Australia  have  to  show.  Anthropologically  throughout,  ethno- 
graphically  in  many  portions,  America  belongs  to  the  northern  regions. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  Africa  and  Asia  the  most  important  question  bears 
upon  the  relations  between  north  and  south.  A  sharp  distinction  is  here  made 
by  the  different  nature  of  the  boundaries  towards  the  north.  Between  the  negroes 
and  North  Africa  lies  the  desert,  a  large  and  substantial  barrier.  South  Asia 
consists  only  of  loosely  connected  parts,  not  sharply  marked  off  from  the  north 
and  middle  regions.  Above  all,  India  has  been  subject  to  influences  which 
distinguish  it  from  Africa  ;  but  both  in  customs  and  physical  characteristics  we 
find  in  Africa  earlier,  that  is  less  modified,  conditions  of  a  development  proceeding 
from  the  same  origin  as  in  India.  Lastly,  Malaysia  shares  with  Madagascar  and 
India  in  the  invasion  of  offsets  from  northern  races. 

Wherever  dark  and  light  races  have  been  in  contact,  from  the  north-west  point 
of  Africa  to  Fiji,  crossing  has  taken  place  between  them.  Such  half-bred  races, 
of  most  various  degrees  of  intermixture,  inhabit  the  Soudan,  the  Sahara,  Southern 
and  Central  East  Africa,  Southern  Arabia,  Madagascar,  southern  India  on  both 
sides  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  and  Australia.  In  southern  Europe  and  the  extreme 
of  Polynesia  we  find  isolated  traces  of  negroid  admixture.  Only  one  well-defined 
race,  thanks  to  its  secluded  position,  has  been  able  fully  to  develop  itself.  We 
refer  to  the  Australians,  who  with  their  dark  skins,  stiff  or  curly  hair,  and  long 
(dolichocephalic)  heads  appear  to  spring  from  a  cross  of  Papuan  with  Malayo- 
Polynesian  ancestors.  The  peculiarities  (of  which  we  do  not  know  the  origin) 
belonging  to  the  Papuan  type  are  also  noticeable  here  ;  and  we  have  besides 
the  tendency  to  degradation  in  the  traces  of  a  low  stage  of  culture  and  a  life  of 
poverty. 

The  water  surface  of  the  earth  extends  in  the  sea  alone  to  almost  three- 


THE   HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


quarters  of  the  whole,  so  that  all  the  land  is  an  island  in  a  sea  nearly  three  times 
its  size.  The  most  widely  separated  portion  of  mankind  must,  even  in  the  course  of 
their  movements  in  historical  times,  have  been  brought  to  the  sea  ;  and  before  the 
invention  of  seafaring  there  must  have  been  a  time  when  the  sea  confined  them^ 
to  those  regions  which  had  been  the  cradle  of  the  race.  That  invention,  the 
earliest  indications  of  which  have  long  disappeared — for  in  all  parts  of  the  earth  we 
find  high  development  of  the  art  side  by  side  with  ignorance  of  it — was  the  first 
thing  that  rendered  possible  the  spread  of  mankind  over  almost  all  the  habitable 


Fijian  double  canoe. 


portions  of  the  globe.  In  the  most  various  parts  of  the  earth  we  meet  with  the 
arts  of  shipbuilding  and  navigation  in  an  advanced  stage.  This  is  most  conspicuous 
in  the  Pacific,  least  so  in  the  Atlantic.  This  irregular  distribution  is  a  sign  of  the 
ease  with  which  the  art  is  forgotten  ;  so  that  we  must  not  from  its  absence  in 
places,  and  the  absence  even  of  any  memory  of  it,  infer  a  continued  or  complete 
non-activity  in  regard  to  the  sea.  Even  if  we  did  not  meet,  in  Hawaii  and  else- 
where, with  traditions  of  larger  and  better  vessels  in  former  times,  the  close 
connection  which  subsists  between  a  high  social  and  political  organisation  and 
proficiency  in  seafaring  would  presume  the  possibility  of  a  rapid  retrogression 
in  the  latter.  The  Northmen  sailed  to  Iceland,  Greenland,  America,  in  little  boat%: 
which,  perhaps,  were  not  so  good  as  those  used  by  the  Polynesians  ;  afterwards 
they  lost  sight  of  the  land  which  had  been  their  goal,  and  forgot  the  way  to  it. 
The  very  extent  of  the  inhabited  world  at  the  present  day,  embracing  as  it  does 


SITUATION,  ASPECT,  AND  NUMBERS   OF   THE  HUMAN  RACE  g 

all  habitable  lands  with  the  exception  of  a  few  remote  and  small  islands,  is  in 
itself  evidence  for  the  antiquity  of  man. 

The  broad  expanse  of  waters  opened  to  men  a  copious  source  of  food,  and  for 
that  reason  caused  the  maritime  regions  to  be  most  thickly  peopled  ;  it  also  facili- 
tated intercourse  between  distant  countries,  which  might  have  been  impossible 
across  lands  inhabited  by  hostile  races,  and  accordingly  the  higher  civilization 
spread  inland  from  the  coasts.  For  this  reason  it  has  always  exercised  the 
remarkable  influence  upon  men's  thoughts  which  we  see  in  the  part  played  by 
the  sea  or  lake-horizon  in  all  images  of  the  world  that  have  ever  been  conceived. 
Most  of  these  picture  the  earth  as  an  island  in  a  broad  sea,  and  the  future  world 
as  lying  far  off  in  the  sea.  Whether  this  be  a  land  with  a  stream  round  it  or  an 
island  in  the  evening  glow,  whether  it  be  in  a  lake  or  in  a  river,  or  copious 
springs  gush  from  it,  or  beardless  youths  constantly  hold  the  water  back  from 
it,  or  whether,  lastly,  it  is  only  that  the  way  to  it  lies  over  the  sea,  it  is  not 
waterless  land.  The  soul  has  to  take  its  way  across  water  ;  hence  the  frequent 
occurrence  of  boat-formed  coffins  or  even  grave-stones,  the  burial  in  boats,  or  the 
little  canoe  used  by  the'Dyaks  as  a  sepulchral  monument. 

Thus  wherever  the  earth  is  habitable  by  man,  we  find  peoples  who  are  members 
of  one  and  the  same  human  race.  The  unity  of  the  human  genus  is  as  it  were 
the  work  of  the  planet  Earth,  stamped  on  the  highest  step  of  creation  therein. 
There  is  only  one  species  of  man  ;  the  variations  are  numerous,  but  do  not  go 
deep.  Man  is  in  the  widest  sense  a  citizen  of  the  earth.  Even  to  parts  of  the 
earth  where  he  cannot  remain  he  makes  his  way.  He  knows  nearly  the  entire 
globe.  Of  all  the  beings  attached  to  the  ground  he  is  one  of  the  most  locomotive. 
Individual  movements  are  linked  together,  and  one  great  movement,  the  substratum 
of  which  is  all  humanity,  goes  forward  with  time.  As  the  linking  is  necessary 
and  continuous,  it  raises  individual  movement  to  a  position  of  higher  significance. 
The  ultimate  result  is  not  only  a  wider  distribution,  but  also  the  increasing 
permeation  of  the  portions  that  dwell  within  the  habitable  limits  until  a  general 
agreement  in  essentials  is  attained.  This  affects  the  whole  ;  peculiarities  adhere 
to  localities.  Thus  we  are  entitled,  in  a  scientific  sense,  to  speak  of  the  unity  of 
the  human  race,  if  by  unity  we  understand  not  uniformity  but  the  community, 
shown  by  testimonies  from  every  domain,  of  the  life  of  different  peoples,  in  a 
history  embracing  many  thousands  of  years,  as  presupposed  by  the  common  basis 
which  nature'  has  given.  If  there  has  been  in  the  later  historical  period  so  rapid 
an  acceleration  in  the  pace  at  which  culture  has  progressed,  that  certain  groups 
seem  to  have  advanced  far  beyond  the  remaining  mass,  there  yet  remains  much 
of  the  common  inheritance  to  be  found  among  the  highest  as  well  as  the  lowest 
strata.  And  if  it  be  inquired,  what  is  the  origin  of  this  common  inheritance,  we 
can  again  point  to  the  fact  that  restless  movement  is  the  stamp  of  mankind.  In 
comparison  with  its  strength  and  duration  the  earth  is  small  ;  a  thousand 
generations  of  our  ancestors,  from  the  moment  that  ships  were  invented  for  the 
crossing  of  rivers  and  seas,  were  enabled,  whether  voluntarily  or  not,  to  wander 
round  it.  But  that  moment  lies  far  behind  us.  Only  a  short-sighted  conceit  can 
regard  the  fact  that,  in  the  four  centuries  since  the  discovery  of  America,  Europeans 
have  spread  far  and  wide  over  that  continent  their  domestic  animals  and  plants, 
their  weapons  and  implements,  above  all  their  religion,  as  an  unapproached 
phenomenon  in  the  history  of  the  world.      Others  besides  Northmen  discovered 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


America  before  Columbus.  The  world  that  we  pretentiously  style  "  the  New 
must  have  been  discovered  from  the  westward  many  a  time  before  the  Pale  Faces 
came  from  the  east  as  the  latest  and  definitive  discoverers.  If  the  Malays  have 
spread  over  the  200°  of  longitude  that  separate  Madagascar  from  Easter  Island 
in  a  period  which,  as  language  and  else  shows,  has  not  been  going  on  for  many 
centuries  ;  if,  since  the  European  discovery  of  America,  individual  tribes  in  that 
continent  have  changed  their  locality  by  over  2000  miles  ;  if  over  half  Africa, 
within  a  belt  40°  of  latitude  in  width,  a  language  is  spoken  with  only  differences 
of  dialect  equivalent  to  that  between  high  and  low  German,  we  must  grant  that 
European  civilization  was  not  the  first  to  set  a  girdle  round  the  earth.  The  great 
and  only  distinction  is  that  to-day  that  takes  place  deliberately  which  in  former 
ages  was  the  result  of  a  dim  impulse,  such  as  in  historic  times  acted  on  Alexander 
and  Columbus,  in  prehistoric  times  on  thousands  of  their  predecessors, 
,  If  we  regard  mankind  as  a  body  ever  in  movement,  we  cannot,  as  once  was 

usual,  look  upon  it  as  a  union  of  species,  sub-species,  groups,  races,  tribes,  rigidly 
separate  from  each  other.  As  soon  as  ever  a  portion  of  mankind  had  learnt  to 
plough  the  dissociating  ocean,  the  mark' was  set  for  ever-progressing  fusion.  If 
we  assume,  with  the  majority  of  anthropologists  at  the  present  day,  a  single  origin 
for  man,  the  reunion,  into  one  real  whole,  of  the  parts  which  have  diverged  after 
the  fashion  of  "  sports,"  must  be  regarded  as  the  unconscious  ultimate  aim  of 
these  movements  of  mankind.  This,  in  the  limited  space  of  the  habitable  world, 
must  lead  to  permeation,  and,  as  a  consequence,  to  mingling,  crossing,  levelling. 
But  again,  as  a  similar  organisation  has  spread  among  men,  the  possibility  has 
increased  of  migration  to  places  the  most  remote  from  the  original  abode ;  and  in 
the  whole  world  there  is  hardly  a  frontier  left  which  has  not  been  crossed.  In 
applying  the  comprehensive  term  "  Wandering  of  the  Nations,"  people  are  apt  to 
overlook  the  individual,  whose  movements  we  must  expressly  declare  are  no  less 
important. 

The  numbers  of  mankind  are  closely  dependent  on  their  territory,  since  this 
exercises  a  great  influence  on  their  interior  development,  their  distribution,  their 
relations.  The  total  figure,  as  now  estimated,  of  1,500,000,000  must  be  regarded 
as  the  result  of  a  development  never  attained  before.  The  development  of 
modern  conditions  is  in  a  higher  measure  than  is  usually  believed  connected  with 
the  increased  replenishment  of  the  earth.  The  organisation  of  races  outside  of 
the  European  and  Asiatic  sphere  of  civilization  does  not  permit  any  density  of 
population  to  exist.  Small  communities  cultivating  their  narrow  patches  of 
ground  are  separated  from  each  other  by  wide  empty  spaces  which  either  serve 
for  hunring-grounds  or  lie  useless  and  vacant.  These  limit  the  possibilities  of 
intercourse,  and  render  large  permanent  assemblies  of  men  impossible.  Hunting 
races,  among  whom  agriculture  does  not  exist  or  tends  to  vanish,  often  dwell  so 
thinly  scattered  that  there  will  be  only  one  man,  frequently  less,  to  24  square  miles. 
Where  there  is  some  agriculture,  as  among  many  Indian  tribes,  among  Dyaks,  in 
Papua,  we  find  from  i  o  to  40  in  the  same  area  ;  as  it  develops  further,  in  Central 
Africa  for  instance,  or  the  Malay  Archipelago,  from  100  to  300.  In  the  north- 
west of  America  the  fishing-races  who  live  on  the  coast  run  to  100  in  20  square 
miles,  and  the  cattle-keeping  nomads  to  about  the  same.  Where  fishing  and 
agriculture  are  combined,  as  in  Oceania,  we  find  as  many  as  500.  The  same 
figure  is  reached  in   the  steppes   of  Western   Asia   by  the   partly  settled,  partly 


SITUATION,  ASPECT,  AND  NUMBERS   OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE  ii 

nomad  population.  Here  we  cross  the  threshold  of  another  form  of  civilization. 
Where  trade  and  industry  combine  to  operate  there  is  sustenance  for  io,000 
persons  (as  in  India  and  East  Asia),  or  15,000  (as  in  Europe)  to  24  square  m.iles. 

This  enumeration  shows  at  the  lowest  round  of  the  ladder  peoples  belonging 
to  the  most  different  zones  and  countries.  All  races  in  a  state  of  nature  live 
thinly  scattered ;  civilized  populations  are  marked  by  greater  density.  The 
former  are  more  dependent  on  the  soil  than  the  latter ;  in  districts  similarly 
endowed  their  distribution  is  as  a  rule  similarly  proportioned.  The  difference 
which  we  see  between  the  well-cultivated  but  thinly-peopled  corn-bearing  areas 
and  the  thickly-inhabited  districts  of  spade-cultivation  are  results  of  civilization.. 

In  density  of  population  lies  not  only  steadiness  of  and  security  for  vigorous 
growth,  but  also  the  immediate  means  of  promoting  civilization.  The  closer  men 
are  in  contact,  the  more  they  can  impart  to  each  other,  the  less  does  what  is 
acquired  by  civilization  go  to  waste,  the  higher  does  competition  raise  the  activity 
of  all  their  powers.  The  increase  and  maintenance  of  the  numbers  are  intimately 
connected  with  the  development  of  culture  ;  a  population  thinly  scattered  over  a 
large  district  means  low  civilization,  while  in  old  or  new  centres  of  civilization  we 
find  the  people  in  dense  masses.  China  and  India  reckon  their  inhabitants  at 
600,000,000,  but  an  equivalent  area  of  the  intervening  region  of  Central  Asiatic 
nomads,  Mongolia,  Tibet,  East  Turkestan,  cannot  show  a  sixtieth  of  the  number. 
Six-sevenths  of  the  earth's  inhabitants  belong  to  civilized  countries. 

While  the  history  of  the  European  nations  for  centuries  past  shows  the  same 
decided  tendency  to  increase  which  we  observe  even  in  ancient  times,  the  uncivilized 
races  offer  examples  of  shrinkage  and  retrogression  such  as  we  find  in  the  case  of  the 
others,  if  at  all,  only  lasting  over  a  short  period,  and  then  as  the  result  of  casualties 
such  as  war  and  pestilence.  The  very  thinness  of  the  population  is  a  cause  of 
their  decay ;  their  smaller  numbers  are  more  readily  brought  to  the  point  of 
dwindling  or  vanishing.  Rapid  using-up  of  the  vital  powers  is  a  characteristic  of 
all  the  races  in  the  lower  stages  of  civilization.  Their  economical  basis  is  narrow 
and  incomplete,  frugality  only  too  often  verges  on  poverty,  scarcity  is  a  frequent 
visitor,  and  all  those  measures  of  precaution  with  which  sanitary  science  surrounds 
our  life  are  lacking.  In  the  struggle  with  the  too  pov/erful  forces  of  nature,  as  in 
the  Arctic  regions  or  the  steppe-districts  of  the  southern  hemisphere,  on  the  confines 
of  the  inhabited  world,  they  often  succumb  till  they  are  completely  wiped  out,  and 
a  whole  race  perishes.  It  is  quite  a  mistake  to  refer,  as  is  often  done,  the  extinc- 
tion of  barbarous  races,  of  which  we  hear  so  much,  solely  to  contact  with  superior 
civilization.  But  closer  consideration  enables  us  to  recognise  self-destruction  as  a 
no  less  frequent  case.  The  two  work  as  a  rule  together  ;  neither  would  attain  its 
end  so  quickly  without  the  co-operation  of  the  other.  The  basis  of  a  healthy 
increase  in  population  is  an  approximate  balance  of  the  sexes ;  this  among 
uncivilized  people  is  generally  disturbed,  and  the  number  of  children  small.  War, 
murder,  and  kidnapping  all  contribute  to  reduce  the  population.  Human  life  is 
of  small  value,  as  human  sacrifices  and  cannibalism  sufficiently  indicate.  Lastly, 
man  in  a  state  of  nature  is  far  from  possessing  that  ideal  health  of  which  so  many 
have  fabled;  the  negroes  of  Africa  can  alone  be  described  as  a  robust  race. 
Australians,  Polynesians,  Americans,  on  the  other  hand,  are  far  more  subject  to 
diseases  than  civilized  men  are,  and  adapt  themselves  to  new  climates  with  difficulty. 
There  is  no  question  but  that  these  peoples  were  in  many  districts  slowly  dying 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


out  by  sickness  before  the  appearance  of  Europeans.  But  no  doubt  the  arrival  of 
civilization  disturbs  society  down  to  its  roots.  It  contracts  the  available  space,  thus 
altering  one  of  the  conditions  upon  which,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  the  peculiar 
social  and  political  arrangements  of  races  in  a  natural  state  were  framed.  It 
introduces  wants  and  enjoyments  which  are  not  in  harmony  with  the  mode  of 
living  usual  among  these  people,  or  their  capacity  for  labour.  It  brings  upon 
them  diseases  previously  unknown,  which  on  a  new  soil  commit  frightful  ravages; 
and  inevitable  quarrels  and  fighting  besides.  Over  the  larger  territories,  such  as 
North  America,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  the  progress  of  civilization  led  to  the 
crowding  of  the  aboriginal  races  into  the  least  favourable  districts,  and  therewith 
to  the  diminution  of  their  numbers.  In  the  smaller,  such  as  oceanic  islands  (but 
also  in  Cuba  and  Haiti),  they  have  nearly  died  out,  in  some  cases  been  absorbed 
by  the  stronger  race,  in  any  case  they  have  disappeared.  Where  the  greater 
toughness  of  the  inferior  race,  or  more  favourable  natural  conditions,  has  delayed 
the  process,  as  in  any  part  of  Africa,  in  North  America,  in  Mexico,  an  intermixture, 
which  will  ultimately  end  no  less  in  the  abolition  of  the  natives  as  an  individual 
and  independent  race,  is  in  progress.  Great  shiftings  have  already  taken  place, 
others  are  going  on,  and  over  wide  districts,  owing  to  these  passive  movements, 
it  is  impossible  to  think  of  the  people  as  in  a  state  of  stability.  As  far  as  95°  of 
west  longitude.  North  America  can  show  only  the  debris  of  Indian  tribes;^  in 
Victoria  and  New  South  Wales  there  are  hardly  a  thousand  aborigines  left ;  and 
it  is  only  a  question  of  time  when  Northern  Asia,  North  America,  Australia,  and 
Oceania  will  be  Europeanised. 

A  thousand  examples  show  that  in  all  this  change  and  movement  the  races 
cannot  remain  unaltered,  and  that  even  the  most  numerous,  counting  their  hundreds 
of  millions,  cannot  keep  their  footing  in  the  tumult  that  surges  around  them, 
Inter-breeding  is  making  rapid  strides  in  all  parts  of  the  earth.  From  North  and 
East  Africa,  Arabs  and  peoples  of  the  Berber  stock  are  pressing  upon  the  Negroes, 
of  whom  the  most  remote  tribes  to  the  southern  extremity  of  the  continent  show 
in  their  Semitic  features  how  long  these  influences  have  been  at  work.  In  the 
place  of  the  Hottentots  we  find  the  Bastaards,  European  half-breeds.  In  Canada 
nearly  all  the  French  settlements  show  traces  of  Indian  blood  ;  in  Central  and 
South  America  the  Mestizos  and  Mulattos  are  already  stronger  than  the  full- 
blooded  Indians  ;  in  Oceania,  Malays  and  Polynesians  are  crossed  with  the  Negro 
of  the  Pacific  ;  throughout  Central  Asia  there  is  a  mixture  of  Mongol,  Chinese,  and 
European  blood,  reaching  far  in  the  direction  of  Europe  and  affecting  the  whole 
north  and  east  of  one  quarter  of  the  globe.  The  greater  bulk,  quicker  growth,  and 
superiority  in  all  conquering  arts,  which  mark  the  more  highly  civilized  races,  give 
them,  wherever  climate  is  not  unfavourable,  the  advantage  in  this  process,  and  we 
can  speak  of  an  absorption  of  the  lower  by  the  higher  even  where  the  latter  for 
the  present  are  not  in  the  majority.  If  there  is  any  consolation  in  the  universal 
disappearance  of  native  races,  it  is  the  knowledge  that  a  great  part  of  them  is 
being  slowly  raised  by  the  process  of  intermixture.  No  doubt  people  like  to 
repeat  a  statement,  professedly  based  on  old  experience,  that  in  half-breeds  the 
vices  of  both  parents  predominate,  but  a  glance  at  the  national  life  of  the  present 
day  is  enough   to   show  that  Mulattos,  Mestizos,   Negro  and   Arab   half-breeds 

'  [There  is  some  doubt  whether  the  actual  number  of  North  American  Indians  has  much   diminished. 
Rather  the  natural  multiplication  of  the  race  has  been  checked.] 


SITUATION,  ASPECT,  AND  NUMBERS   OF   THE  HUMAN  RACE 


13 


Sandili,  king  of  the  Gaikas  ;  showing  the  Semitic  type  of  the 
Kaffirs.      (From  a  photograph  by  G.  Fritsch. ) 


stand   in  America   and    in  Africa  at  the   head    of   Indians   and   Negroes.      The 
mixture   once   begun   continues   to    progress,   and   each   fresh    infusion   of   liigher 
blood  tends  to  reduce  the  interval  by  levelling  up.     We  need  only  consider  how 
nearly  the  Indians  of  Mexico  and 
Peru  have  risen  to  the  level  of  the 
people  of  European   descent,  from 
whom  they  seemed  at  the  time  of 
the  Conquest  to  be  separated  by  a 
bottomless  chasm. 

If  the  history  of  the  world 
shows  a  spread,  interrupted  indeed 
but  ever  progressing,  of  civilization 
throughout  the  earth,  the  natural 
numerical  preponderance  existing 
among  civilized  folk  is  an  im- 
portant factor  therein.  The  people 
who  increase  the  more  quickly  pour 
out  their  surplus  upon  the  others, 
and  thus  the  influence  of  the  higher 
culture,  which  itself  was  the  cause 
or  condition  of  the  more  rapid 
multiplication,  gets  spontaneously 
the  upper  hand.  Thus  the  spread 
of  civilization  appears  as  a  self- 
accelerating  outgrowth  over  the 
world  of  civilizing  races,  ever  striv- 
ing more  completely  to  effect  that 
unity  of  the  human  race  which 
forms  at  once  its  aim  and  task,  its 
desire  and  hope. 

In  conclusion,  if  we  seek  to 
trace  backward  the  road  which  the 
most  important  parts  of  mankind 
have  followed,  we  find  the  starting- 
point  to  be  the  neighbouring  exist- 
ence of  several  variations,  or,  as 
Blumenbach  prefers,  degenerated 
forms  of  the  one  human  species. 
These  were  at  first  confluent  at  a 
few  points  only ;  but,  as  intercourse 
increased,  came  more  and  more  into 
contact,  at  last  penetrating  and 
mingling  with  each  other  to  such 
a  degree  that  no  one  of  the  original 
varieties  now  exists  .  in  the  form 
once  peculiar  to  it.  What  remains,  however,  leads  us  back  to  two  great  contrasted 
divisions  which  survive  in  the  races  of  to-day,  the  Whites  and  Mongoloids  in  the 
northern  hemisphere,  the   Negroes  in  the  southern.     These  embrace  the  further 


A  Galla  monk  :  Hamitic  or  Semitic  blend.     (From  a  photo- 
graph in  the  collection  of  Pruner  Bey. ) 


i^  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


contrasts  of  continental  compactness  and  oceanic  disconnection  ;  of  the  world 
which  is  deeply  interlaced  with  the  north  polar  regions,  and  that  which  is  cut  off 
by  the  ocean  from  polar  influences.  The  Negro  races,  whether  in  Africa,  Asia, 
or  the  Pacific,  may  once  have  lived  further  north  than  they  do  now ;  but,  in  any 
case,  they  always  held  the  more  southerly  position  under  the  impulse  which  has 
assigned  to  them  this  present  place  of  abode. 


§  3.    THE  POSITION  OF  NATURAL  RACES  AMONG  MANKIND 

The  conception  of  a  natural  or  barbarous  race — Progress  and  retrogression — Bodily  differences — Civilized  races 
—The  brute  in  man— Wherein  does  the  possession  of  culture  consist  ? — Common  property  of  mankind 
in  reason,  language,  religion — In  the  remaining  elements  of  civilization  the  difference  is  only  one  of 
degree. 

First  a  word  as  to  the  name  of  "  natural "  races  which  we  shall  frequently 
have  to  use.  They  are  those  races  who  live  more  in  bondage  to,  or  in  dependence 
on,  nature  than  do  those  whom  we  call  "  cultured "  or  "  civilized."  What  the 
name  expresses  is  a  distinction  in  mode  of  life,  of  mental  talent,  of  historical 
position  ;  it  assumes  nothing  and  prejudices  nothing  in  those  directions,  and  is 
therefore  doubly  suitable  for  our  purpose.  For  we  shall  perhaps  have  to  make 
this  neutral  name  contain  what  is  in  many  respects  so  different  a  conception  as 
that  which  the  reader  has  b2en  wont  to  attach  to  the  term  "  savages."  We 
speak  of  natural  races,  not  because  they  stand  in  the  most  intimate  relations  with 
Nature,  but  because  they  are  in  bondage  to  Nature.  The  distinction  between 
natural  and  cultured  races  is  not  to  be  sought  in  the  degree,  but  in  the  kind  of 
their  association  with  Nature.  Culture  is  freedom  from  Nature,  not  in  the  sense  of 
entire  emancipation,  but  in  that  of  a  more  manifold  and  wider  connection.  The 
farmer  who  stores  his  corn  in  a  barn  is  ultimately  just  as  dependent  on  the  soil  of 
his  fields  as  the  Indian  who  reaps  in  the  swamps  the  rice  which  he  did  not  sow  ;  but 
the  former  feels  the  dependence  less,  since,  owing  to  the  provision  which  he  had 
the  wisdom  to  store  up,  the  chain  is  longer  and  its  pressure  accordingly  less  severe ; 
while  the  latter  is  touched  in  the  very  sinews  of  life  by  every  tempest  which  shakes 
the  ears  into  the  water.  We  do  not  become  any  the  freer  of  Nature  by  our  more 
thorough  utilisation  and  exploration  of  her ;  we  only  make  ourselves  less 
dependent  on  individual  accidents  of  her  being  or  of  her  course  by  multiplying  the 
points  of  contact.  It  is  just  by  reason  of  our  civilization  that  we  are  actually 
to-day  more  dependent  on  her  than  any  former  generation. 

We  must  not  content  ourselves  with  contrasting  natural  and  civilized  races, 
and  noticing  the  wide  gap  which  seems  to  yawn  between  them ;  our  business  is 
to  propound  the  question  :  What  is  the  position  which  the  natural  races  hold 
among  mankind  ?  For  centuries  this  question  has  been  treated  with  an  indolence 
which,  when  its  desire  for  facts,  narratives,  and  descriptions  was  once  appeased,  felt 
no  further  necessity  for  establishing  the  relation  of  "  savages  "  to  the  rest  of  the 
human  race.  These  black  and  brown  men  were  very  strange,  very  curious ;  it 
was  highly  interesting  to  read  of  them,  and  that  was  quite  enough.  We  have  no 
occasion  to  laugh  at  this  attitude  ;  our  own  delight  in  descriptions  of  travel  is 
much  of  the  same  sort.     The  more  uncivilized  the  country,  the  more  fascinating 


POSITION  OF  NATURAL  RACES  AMONG  MANKIND  15 

the  tale.  But  the  researches  of  Cook,  Forster,  Barrow,  Lichtenstein,  and  so  on, 
making,  as  even  they  did,  some  effort  after  a  deeper  insight  into  and  clearer  views 
of  natural  life,  possessed  for  their  contemporaries  chiefly  a  romantic  interest,  and 
gave  little  subject  of  consideration  to  the  philosophers.  The  only  deeper  emotion 
aroused  by  the  increasing  number,  excellence,  and  popularity  of  works  of  travel 
towards  the  end  of  the  last  century  consisted  in  the  shaking  of  beliefs  in  that 
blissful  state  of  nature  which  beautiful  spirits  after  Rousseau  venerated  as  the 
most  desirable  existence,  only  to  be  realised  in  the  solitude  of  primeval  forests,  or 
on  the  shores  of  fortunate  islands.  It  was  sought,  but  never  found.  What  a 
disillusion  for  hearts  of  sensibility  such  as  were  possessed  by  the  readers  of  The 
Indian  Wigwam,  or  George  Forster's  sketch  of  the  paradisal  Otaheitans. 

Slowly  did  the  consideration  of  savage  races  make  its  way  from  the  sphere  of 
the  emotions  to  that  of  the  intellect ;  and  at  the  same  time  the  estimate  formed 
of  these  races  sank  a  good  deal  lower,  proportionately  almost  to  the  greater  distance 
by  which  we  are  ahead  of  them  rather  in  intellect  than  in  those  amiable  dispositions 
and  expressions  which  had  hitherto  been  regarded  with  predilection.  Then  came 
into  the  world  the  idea  of  evolution,  dividing  races  into  strata  ;  whereby,  as  must  be 
clearly  pointed  out,  uncivilized  races  were,  on  the  basis  less  of  considered  facts 
than  of  general  sentiment,  lumped  together  as  a  kind  of  heterogeneous  foundation. 
One  can  understand  the  almost  passionate  need  which  was  felt  of  providing 
supports  in  the  world  of  actual  fact  for  the  bold  edifice  of  the  theory  of  evolution, 
and  if  we  cannot  ally  ourselves  at  all  points  with  this  feeling,  it  would  be  unjust 
not  to  recognise  that  it  has  called  forth,  no  less  in  the  study  of  the  life  of  races 
than  in  that  of  all  life,  a  movement  which  is  bringing  fruitful  truths  to  light.  In 
every  field  the  most  difficult  research  is  that  into  origins  ;  but  it  is  just  this  once- 
neglected  but  most  profound  problem  which  the  evolutionists  have  handled  in 
ethnology  as  well  as  elsewhere  with  an  admirable  unity  of  purpose.  Whether 
negative  or  positive,  their  results  deserve  our  gratitude.  To  them  is  due  the  merit 
of  having  placed  a  rich  array  of  facts  at  the  disposal  of  science  ;  from  the  day 
when  they  took  it  in  hand  must  we  date  the  thorough  research  into  what  has  been 
somewhat  too  hastily  called  the  original  conditions  of  the  human  race. 

While  we  are  duly  thankful  for  these  pioneering  achievements,  we  cannot 
reconcile  ourselves  to  their  conclusions.  They  look  for  origin  and  "  development " 
everywhere.  Are  we  not  entitled,  on  scientific  territory,  to  meet  with  a  certain 
mistrust  such  a  search,  which  knows  so  well  beforehand  what  it  i^  going  to  find  ? 
Experience  teaches  us  how  near  to  this  lies  the  danger  of  premature  assumption. 
A  man  whose  head  is  full  of  one  possibility  holds  others  very  cheap.  If  the 
inquirer,  steeped  in  the  idea  of  evolution,  finds  a  race  which  in  several  or  even 
many  respects  is  behind  its  neighbours,  the  "  behind "  is  involuntarily  converted 
into  "  below  "  ;  it  is  regarded  as  on  a  lower  round  of  the  ladder  by  which  mankind 
have  ascended  from  their  original  state  to  the  heights  of  civilization.  That  is  the 
counterpart  of  the  one-sided,  nay,  extravagant  notion  that  man  came  into  the 
world  a  civilized  being,  but  that  a  retrogressive  degeneration  has  made  him  what 
we  find  to-day  among  "  natural "  races.  Just  as  the  idea  of  evolution  found  its 
chief  adherents  among  physical  students,  so,  for  reasons  which  we  can  easily  divine, 
did  this  notion  of  retrogression  appeal  to  students  of  religion  and  language. 
Meanwhile  it  has  at  the  present  day  been  pushed  far,  in  our  view  too  far,  into  the 
background.      Inquiry  has  far  less  to  dread  from  it  than  from  the  opinion   most 


i6 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


decidedly  opposed   to   it,  of  which   the   fundamental  conception   expressed   in   its 
basest  and  most  abstract  form  would  be  somewhat  as  follows  :   "  In  mankind  there 

exists  only  upward  effort, 
progress,    development ; 
no  retreat,  no  decay,  no 
dying  out."      Put  in  this 
way,  do  we  not  at  once 
see    how    one-sided    is 
such  a  way  of  looking 
at   things  ?      It   is   true 
that  only  extremists  go 
so  far  in  this  direction, 
and  Darwin,  who,  as  a 
great    creator   of    ideas, 
held  his  views  with  the 
fullest  sense  of  propor- 
tion, admits   that   many 
nations    may    undoubt- 
edly have  gone  back  in 
their    civilization,    some 
even    fallen    into    utter 
barbarism  ;  although,  he 
cautiously  adds,  he  has 
found    no    evidence  for 
the    latter    case.       But 
even  he,  in   his  Descent 
of  Man,  has  not  always. 
been  able  to  escape  the 
temptation    to    imagine 
mankind    more    various 
in    itself    and    reaching' 
in    its   supposed   lowest 
members     more     nearly 
down  to  the  brute  world 
than  on  cooler  reflection 
appears  possible.  I 

Here  we  see  the  two 
extreme  conceptions  of 
natural  races.  We  can 
understand  how  funda- 
mentally different  must 
be  the  resulting  modesi 
of  considering  every  side 
of  their  existence,  or 
fiitiTrP      T?^,-  ,„t,o^  A-cc  ,  estimating  their  past  and 

IssSns  ther^  thif  1      T  K  ,""   ^"  ^''^'^'  *^^"   ^^^^^^  ^  conception  which 

ofthe  lonTand  diffi'lt        JT  "'  "'"'  ^"  *'^  ^^P^'^^^^^^  ^^-^  have  matured 
on  the  long  and  difficult  road  between  their  position  and  ours  are  as  yet  unde- ' 


Young  girl  of  the  Mountain  Damara  tribe.     (From  a  photograph 
belonging  to  the  Barmen  Mission,  j        '^         ^    ^^ 


POSITION  OF  NATURAL  RACES  AMONG  MANKIND  17 

veloped,  and  one  which  regards  them  as  it  were  on  the  same  line  with  us,  at  an 
equal  or  similar  stage  of  evolution,  but  robbed  by  ill-luck  of  a  large  part  of  their 
share  of  culture,  and  thus  impoverished,  miserable,  and  in  arrear  ?  May  we  be 
permitted  to  examine  the  facts  at  first  hand,  and  to  approach  a  little  nearer  to 
the  mean  where  the  truth  lies  than  it  has  been  granted  these  hypotheses  to  do. 

The  question  which  first  occurs  is  that  of  innate  physical  distinctions,  since 
these  must  enable  us  to  form  the  most  trustworthy  conclusions  as  to  the  nature 
and  magnitude  of  the  general  difference  to  be  observed  among  mankind.  But  that 
is  a  matter  of  anatomy  and  physiology,  and  as  such  concerns  the  anthropologist 
rather  than  us.  For  separate  facts  and  all  wider  excursions  in  the  field  our 
readers  must  be  referred  to  books  on  the  subject.  From  our  ethnographical 
point  of  view,  from  which  the  great  distinctions  in  human  civilization,  with  their 
important  results,  are  most  clearly  to  be  recognised,  the  first  thing  we  wish  is  that 
the  notion  of  culture -races,  in  respect  of  mankind,  might  be  somewhat  more 
thoroughly  tested  than  has  yet  been  done.  It  would,  we  may  safely  predict,  be 
found  first  of  all  that  qualities  appear  in  the  bodily  frame  of  civilizgd  races  due 
to  the  fact  of  their  civilization,  just  as  on  the  other  hand  the  bodies  of  natural  1 
races  have  certain  features  clearly  indicating  the  operation  of  a  mode  of  life 
marked  by  the  lack  of  all  that  we  are  used  to  call  culture.  Gustav  Fritsch,  an 
anatomist  who  has  studied  the  natural  races  in  their  natural  state,  asserts  that 
the  shapely  development  of  the  human  body  is  only  possible  under  the  influence 
of  civilization  ;  and  readers  of  his  descriptions  of  Hottentots,  Bushmen,  and  even 
Kaffirs,  will  feel  convinced  that  well-developed  bodies,  such  as  a  sculptor  would 
call  beautiful,  are  rarer  among  them  than  among  us,  the  "  played-out "  children  of 
civilization.  He  states  plainly  in  one  place  that  the  healthy,  normally-developed 
German,  both  as  to  proportions  and  as  to  strength  and  completeness  of  form, 
surpasses  in  fact  the  average  Bantu  man.^  The  Bantus,  we  may  add,  are,  in  the 
Kaffir  branch  of  which  he  is  here  speaking,  one  of  the  toughest  and  most  powerful 
races  of  Africa.  In  recent  times  we  have  often  heard  similar  judgments  ;  and 
the  saying  of  an  American  ethnographer,  that  the  Indians  are  the  best  model  of 
the  Apollo  Belvedere,  cannot  pass  even  as  a  flower  of  speech.  Deeper  investiga- 
tions have  shown  differences  in  the  skeleton  referable  in  the  one  case  to  the 
influences  of  civilized,  in  the  other  to  those  of  uncivilized,  life.  Virchow  has 
plainly  noted  Lapps  and  Bushmen  as  "  pathological "  races,  that  is,  impoverished 
and  degraded  by  hunger  and  want.  But  the  most  important  experiment  for 
settling  the  value  of  racial  distinctions — one  for  which  the  resources  of  science 
are  too  small,  and  only  the  history  of  the  world  suffices — is  now  for  the  first  time 
in  progress.  The  introduction  of  the  so-called  lower  races  into  the  circle  of  the 
higher  civilization,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  barriers  which  once  were  raised  high 
against  such  introduction,  is  not  only  a  brilliant  feat  of  humanity,  but  at  the  same 
time  an  event  of  the  deepest  scientific  interest.  For  the  first  time  m.illions  of 
what  was  considered  the  lowest  race — the  blacks — have  had  all  the  advantages, 
all  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  highest  civilization  thrown  open  to  them  ;  nothing 
prevents  them  from  employing  all  the  means  of  self-formation  which — and  herein 
lies  the  anthropological  interest  of  the  process — will  necessarily  be  transformation. 

'  [One  would  be  curious  to  see  the  result  of  a  fight  between  equal  forces  of  normally-developed  Germans 
and  average  Zulus  or  Matabeles,  firearms  being  barred.  The  question  of  relative  beauty  is  one  which  each 
race  will  answer  differently.] 

C 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


If  we  could  say  to-day  with  approximate  certainty,  what  will  become  in  the 
course  of  generations  of  the  12,000,000  of  negrd  slaves  who  have  within  the 
last  thirty  years  been  freed  in  America,  and  who  will,  in  the  enjoyment  of  freedom 
and  the  most  modern  acquisitions  of  culture,  have  multiplied  to  100,000,000, 
we  could  with  certainty  answer  the  question  as  to  the  effect  of  culture  upon  race- 
distinctions.     But  as  it  is,  we  must  be  content  with  hints  and  conjectures. 

It  may  be  safely  asserted  that  the  study  of  comparative  ethnology  in  recent 
years  has  tended  to  diminish  the  weight  of  the  traditionally-accepted  views  of 

anthropologists  as  to  racial  distinctions,  and  that  in  any 
case  they  afford  no  support  to  the  view  which  sees  in 
the  so-called  lower  races  of  mankind  a  transition-stage 
from  beast  to  man.  The  general  similarity  of  man  to 
the  brutes  in  bodily  structure  cannot  indeed  be  con- 
tested ;  what  we  demur  to  is  the  assumption  that 
individual  portions  of  mankind  are  so  much  more  like 
the  beasts  than  others.  In  our  study  of  people  of 
whatever  race  we  come  upon  traits  that  may  be  called 
bestial ;  but  this  is  only  what  was  to  be  expected.  Since 
man  has  retained  in  his  bodily  structure  so  close  a 
resemblance  to  the  apes  that  even  the  most  recent 
classifiers  have  attached  importance  to  this  only,  and 
might,  without  fear  of  blame  for  illogicality,  recur  to  the 
old  Linnaean  grouping  of  the  genus  homo  with  the  Apes 
in  an  order  of  Primates,  a  reduction  of  the  spiritual 
element  in  human  nature  is  quite  enough  to  allow  the 
bestial  part  of  the  material  foundation  to  emerge  in  a 
pretty  glaring  form.  We  all,  alas  !  are  familiar  with 
the  idea  that  a  beast  lies  hidden  in  every  man,  and 
"  brutality,"  "  brutalisation,"  and  other  only  too  familiar 
terms,  prove  how  frequently  our  fancy  is  called  upon  for 
corresponding  images.  When  a  starving  family  of  Australian  aborigines  retrieves 
from  the  vulture  a  piece  of  carrion,  which  by  all  natural  rights  has  long  been  his 
property,  and  flings  itself  like  a  pack  of  greedy,  jackals  on  its  prey,  gorging  until 
repletion  compels  slumber,  this  testifies  to  a  brutality  in  their  mode  of  life  which 
suppresses  all  movements  of  the  soul.  Nor  are  we  surprised  when  African 
travellers  can  compare  a  startled  swarm  of  Bushmen,  who  see  an  enemy  in  every 
stranger,  black  or  white,  with  nothing  else  than  a  troop  of  chimp,anzees  or  orangs 
in  flight.  We  must  not,  however,  let  all  our  blows  fall  on  these  poor  "natural" 
races  who  have  on  the  whole  no  greater  naturally-implanted  tendency  towards  the 
bestial  than  we  ourselves.  There  exist  Europeans  who  are  morally  degraded 
below  the  level  of  the  Australians.  This  sad  faculty  of  being  or  becoming  like 
the  brutes  is  unhappily  present  in  all  men,  in  some  a  little  more,  in  others  a  little 
less.  Whether  it  manifests  itself  with  more  or  less  frequency  and  plainness 
depends  merely  upon  the  degree  of  acquired  capacity  for  dissimulation,  which 
often  corresponds  to  that  of  civilization.  But  it  is  civilization  alone  which  can 
draw  any  boundary  between  us  and  the  "  natural "  races.  We  may  declare  in  the 
most  decided  manner  that  the  conception  of  "natural"  races  involves  nothing 
anthropological  or  physiological,  but  is  purely  one  of  ethnography  and  civiliza- 


Steel  Axe  of  European  make  with 
old  bone  handle,  from  New 
Zealand.     (Christy  Collection.) 


POSITION  OF  NATURAL  RACES  AMONG  MANKIND 


19 


tion.  Natural  races  are  nations  poor  in  culture.  There  may  be  peoples  belonging 
to  every  race,  endowed  by  nature  in  every  degree,  who  either  have  not  yet  pro- 
gressed to  civilization,  or  have  retrograded  in  respect  of  it.  The  old  Germans  and 
Gauls  appeared  no  less  uncivilized  beside  Roman  civilization  than  do  Kaffirs  or 
Polynesians  beside  ours  ;  and  many  a  people  which  to-day  is  reckoned  as  a  portion 
of  civilized  Russia  was  at  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great  still  in  a  state  of  nature. 


Ainu  beside  one  of  their  store-huts.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Freiherr  von  Siebold,  Vienna. ) 


The  gap  which  differences  of  civilization  create  between  two  groups  of  human 
beings  is  in  truth  quite  independent,  whether  in  its  depth  or  in  its  breadth,  of  the 
differences  in  their  mental  endowments.  We  need  only  observe  what  a  mass  of 
accidents  has  operated  in  all  that  determines  the  height  of  the  stage  of  civilization 
reached  by  a  people,  or  in  the  total  sum  of  their  civilization,  to  guard  ourselves 
with  the  utmost  care  from  drawing  hasty  conclusions  as  to  their  equipment  either 
in  body,  intellect,  or  soul.  Highly-gifted  races  can  be  poorly  equipped  with  all  that 
makes  for  civilization,  and  so  may  produce  the  impression  of  holding  a  low  position 


20  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


in 


among  mankind.  Chinese  and  Mongols  belong  to  the  same  stock  ;  but  what  a 
difference  in  their  civilization.  This  is  even  more  apparent  if,  instead  of  the 
Mongols,  we  take  any  of  the  barbarian  tribes  which,  in  the  frontier  provinces  of 
China  stand  out  like  islands  from  a  sea  of  more  highly-civilized  people,  who  lap  them 
round'  and  will  soon  overwhelm  them.  Or  again,  the  latest  researches  make  it 
probable  that  many  of  the  Ainu,  the  aborigines  of  the  northern  island  of  Japan,  stand 
nearer  to  the  Caucasian  than  to  the  Mongolian  stock.  Yet  they  are  a  "  natural " 
race  even  in  the  eyes  of  Mongolic  Japanese.  Race  as  such  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  'possession  of  civilization.  It  would  be  silly  to  deny  that  in  our  own  times 
the  highest  civilization  has  been  in  the  hands  of  the  Caucasian,  or  white,  races ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  an  equally  important  fact  that  for  thousands  of  years 
in  all  civilizing  movements  there  has  been  a  dominant  tendency  to  raise  all  races 
to  the  level  of  their  burdens  and  duties,  and  therewith  to  make  real  earnest  of  the 
great  conception  of  humanity — a  conception  which  has  been  proclaimed  as  a 
specially  distinguishing  attribute  of  the  modern  world,  but  of  which  many  still  do 
not  believe  in  the  realisation.  But  let  us  only  look  outside  the  border  of  the  brief 
and  narrow  course  of  events  which  we  arrogantly  call  the  history  of  the  world,  and 
we  shall  have  to  recognise  that  members  of  every  race  have  borne  their  part  i" 
the  history  which  lies  beyond,  the  history  of  primeval  and  pre-historic  times. 


§  4.  NATURE,  RISE,  AND    SPREAD    OF   CIVILIZATION 

Natural  and  civilized  races — Language  and  religion  universal  possessions — Races  with  and  without  history- 
Reasons  why  many  races  are  in  a  backward  state — The  development  of  civilization  is  a  matter  of  hoarding 
— So-called  semi-civilization — Material  and  spiritual  elements  in  hoarded  civilization — The  material  basis 
and  the  spiritual  nucleus — Natural  conditions  required  for  development — The  part  of  agriculture  and  pasture 
in  the  development  of  civilized  politics — Zones  of  civilization — Loss  of  civilization. 

What  is  then  the  essential  distinction  which  separates  natural  and  civilized  races  ? 
Upon  this  question  the  evolutionist  faces  us  with  alacrity,  and  declares  that  it  was 
done  with  long  ago  ;  for  who  can  doubt  that  the  natural  or  savage  races  are  the 
oldest  strata  of  mankind  now  existing?  They  are  survivors  from  the  uncultured 
ages  out  of  which  other  portions  of  mankind,  who  have  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
forced  their  way  to  higher  endowments  and  have  acquired  a  richer  possession  of 
culture,  have  long  ago  emerged.  This  assumption  we  meet  with  the  question : 
Wherein  then  does  this  possession  of  culture  consist?  Is  not  reason,  the  basis, 
nay,  the  source  of  it  all,  the  common  property  of  the  human  race  ?  To  language 
and  religion,  as  in  some  measure  the  noblest  forms  of  expression,  we  must  give 
the  precedence  over  all  others,  and  connect  them  closely  with  reason.  In  the  fine 
expression  of  Hamann  :  "  Without  speech  we  could  have  had  no  reason,  without 
reason  no  religion,  and  without  these  three  essential  components  of  our  nature 
neither  intelligence  nor  the  bond  of  society."  It  is  certain  that  language  has 
exercised  an  influence  reaching  beyond  our  sight  upon  the  education  of  the  human 
spirit.  As  Herder  says  :  "  We  must  regard  the  organ  of  speech  as  the  rudder  of 
our  reason,  and  see  in  talk  the  heavenly  spark  which  gradually  kindled  into  flame 
our  senses  and  thoughts."  No  less  certainly  does  the  religion  of  the  less  civilized 
races  contain  in  itself  all  the  germs  which  are  hereafter  to  form  the  noble  flowery 


NATURE,  RISE,  AND  SPREAD   OF  CIVILIZATION 


forest  of  the  spiritual  life  among  civilized  races.  It  is  at  once  art  and  science, 
theology  and  philosophy,  so  that  that  civilized  life  which  strives  from  however 
great  a  distance  to  reach  the  ideal  contains  nothing  which  is  not  embraced  by  it. 
Of  the  priests  of  these  races  the  saying  holds  good  in  the  truest  sense  that  they 
are  the  guardians  of  the  divine  mysteries.  But  the  subsequent  dissemination  of 
these  mysteries  among  the  people,  the  popularising  of  them  in  the  largest  sense,  is 
the  clearest  and  deepest-reaching  indication  of  progress  in  culture.  Now  while  no 
man  doubts  of  the  general  possession  of  reason  by  his  fellow-men  of  every  race  and 
degree,  while  the  equally  general 
existence  of  language  is  a  fact, 
and  it  is  not,  as  was  formerly 
believed,  the  case  that  the  more 
simply  constructed  languages 
belong  to  the  lower  races,  the 
richest  to  those  who  stand  high- 
est ;  the  existence  of  religion 
among  savage  races  has  been 
frequently  doubted.  It  will  be 
one  of  our  tasks  in  the  following 
pages  to  prove  the  unfounded- 
ness  of  this  assumption  in  the 
light  of  many  facts.  For  the 
present  we ,  will  venture  to  as- 
sume the  universality  of  at  least 
some  degree  of  religion. 

In  matters  connected  with 
political  and  economical  insti- 
tutions we  notice  among  the 
natural  races  very  great  differ- 
ences in  the  sum  of  their 
civilization.  Accordingly  we 
have  to  look  among  them  not 
only  for  the  beginnings  of 
civilization,  but  for  a  very  great 
part  of  its  evolution,  and  it  is 

■equally  certain  that  these  differences  are  to  be  referred  less  to  variations  in  endow- 
ment than  to  great  differences  in  the  conditions  of  their  development.  Exchange 
has  also  played  its  part,  and  unprejudiced  observers  have  often  been  more  struck 
in  the  presence  of  facts  by  agreement  than  by  difference.  "  It  is  astonishing," 
exclaims  Chapman,  when  considering  the  customs  of  the  Damaras,  "what  a 
similarity  there  is  in  the  manners  and  practices  of  the  human  family  throughout 
the  world.  Even  here,  the  two  different  classes  of  Damaras  practise  rites  in 
•common  with  the  New  Zealanders,  such  as  that  of  chipping  out  the  front  teeth 
and  cutting  off  the  little  finger."  It  is  less  astonishing  if,  as  the  same  traveller 
remarks,  their  agreement  with  the  Bechuanas  goes  even  further.  Now  since  the 
essence  of  civilization  lies  first  in  the  amassing  of  experiences,  then  in  the  fixity 
with  which  these  are  retained,  and  lastly  in  the  capacity  to  carry  them  further  or 
to  increase  them,  our  first  question  must  be,  how  is  it  possible  to  realise  the  first 


Ambuella  Drum.     (After  Serpa 
Pinto.) 


Igorrote  Drum  from  Luzon. 
(From  the  collection  of 
Dr.  Hans  Meyer. ) 


22  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

fundamental  condition  of  civilization,  namely,  the  amassing  a  stock  of  culture  in 
the  form  of  handiness,  knowledge,  power,  capital  ?  It  has  long  been  agreed  that 
the  first  step  thereto  is  the  transition  from  complete  dependence  upon  what 
Nature  freely  offers  to  a  conscious  exploitation,  through  man's  own  labour, 
especially  in  agriculture  or  cattle-breeding,  of  such  of  her  fruits  as  are  most 
important  to  him.  This  transition  opens  at  one  stroke  all  the  most  remote  pos- 
sibilities of  Nature,  but  we  must  always  remember,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  is  still 
a  long  way  from  the  first  step  to  the  height  which  has  now  been  attained. 

The  intellect  of  man  and  also  the  intellect  of  whole  races  shows  a  wide  dis- 
crepancy in  regard  to  differences  of  endowment  as  well  as  in  regard  to  the  different 
effects  which  external  circumstances  produce  upon  it.     Especially  are  there  varia- 
tions in  the  degree  of  inward  coherence  and  therewith  of  the  fixity  or  duration  of 
the  stock  of  intellect.       The  want  of  coherence,  the  breaking-up  of  this  stock, 
characterises  the  lower  stages  of  civilization  no  less  than  its  coherence,  its  inalien- 
ability, and  its  power  of  growth  do  the  higher.     We  find  in  low  stages  a  poverty 
of  tradition  which  allows  these  races   neither  to  maintain  a  consciousness  of  their 
earlier  fortunes  for  any  appreciable  period  nor  to  fortify  and  increase  their  stock  > 
of  intelligence  either   through  the   acquisitions  of  individual  prominent  minds  or 
through  the  adoption  and  fostering  of  any  stimulus.      Here,  if  we  are  not  entirely 
mistaken,  is  the    basis    of   the    deepest-seated   differences    between    races.      The 
opposition  of   historic   and   non-historic   races   seems  to   border  closely  upon  it. 
But  are  historical  facts  therefore  lost  to  history  when  their  memory  has  not  been 
preserved    in    writing  ?      The    essence    of    history    consists    in    the  very  fact    of 
happening,  not  in  the  recollecting  and  recording  what  has  happened.      We  shoqld 
prefer  to  carry  this  distinction  back  to  the  opposition  between  national  life  in  its 
atoms  and    national    life  organised,  since  the    deepest    distinction  seems    to   be 
indicated  by  internal  coherence  which  occurs  in  the  domain  of  historical  fact,  and 
therefore  mainly  in  the  domain  of  intellect.     The  intellectual  history  of  mankind 
no  less  than  the  social   and  political    is  in  the  first    place  a    progression    fi-omf 
individual  to  united  action.     And  in  truth  it  is  in  the  first  place  external  nature^ 
upon  which   the   intellect  of  man  educates  itself,  seeing  that  he  strives  to  put 
himself  towards  it  in  an  attitude  of  recognition,  the  ultimate  aim  of  which  is  the 
construction  within   himself  of  an   orderly  representation  of  Nature,  that  is  the*' 
creation  of  art,  poetry,  and  science. 

Showing  as  they  do  every  possible  variety  of  racial  affinity,  the  "  natural  'f ' 
races  cannot  be  said  to  form  a  definite  group  in  the  anatomical  or  anthropological 
sense.  Since  in  the  matter  of  language  and  religion  they  share  in  the  highest 
good  that  culture  can  offer,  we  must  not  assign  them  a  place  at  the  root  of  the 
human  family-tree,  nor  regard  their  condition  as  that  of  a  primitive  race,  or  of 
childhood.  There  is  a  distinction  between  the  quickly  ripening  immaturity  of  the 
child  and  the  limited  maturity  of  the  adult  who  has  come  to  a  stop  in  many 
respects.  What  we  mean  by  "  natural "  races  is  something  much  more  like  the 
latter  than  the  former.  We  call  them  races  deficient  in  civilization,  because 
internal  and  external  conditions  have  hindered  them  from  attaining  to  such 
permanent  developments  in  the  domain  of  culture  as  form  the  mark  of  the  true 
civilized  races  and  the  guarantees  of  progress.  Yet  we  should  not  venture  to 
call  any  of  them  cultureless,  so  long  as  none  of  them  is  devoid  of  the  primitive 
means  by  which  the  ascent  to  higher  stages  can  be  made — language,  religion,  fire 


NATURE,  RISE,  AND   SPREAD   OF  CIVILIZATION 


23 


weapons  implements  ;  while  the  very  possession  of  these  means,  and  many  others 
such  as  domestic  animals  and  cultivated  plants,  testifies  to  varied  and  numerous 
deahngs  with  those  races  which  are  completely  civilized. 


Queensland  Abongines 


(From  a  photograph. ) 


The  reasons  why  they  do  not  make  use  of  these  gifts  are  of  many  kinds 
Lower  intellectual  endowment  is  often  placed  in  the  first  rank.  That  is  a 
convenient,  but  not  quite  fair  explanation.  Among  the  savage  races  of  to-day 
we  find  great  diiiferences  in  endowments.      We  need  not  dispute  that  in  the  course 


24  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


of  development  races  of  even  slightly  higher  endowments  have  got  possession  of 
more  and  more  means  of  culture.iand  gained  steadiness  and  security  for  their 
progress,  while  the  less-endowed  remained  behind.  But  external  conditions,  in 
respect  to  their  furthering  or  hindering  effects,  can  be  more  clearly  recognised  and 
estimated  ;  and  it  is  juster  and  more  logical  to  name  them  first.  We  can  conceive 
why  the  habitations  of  the  savage  races  are  principally  to  be  found  on  the  extreme 
borders  of  the  inhabited  world,  in  the  cold  and  hot  regions,  in  remote  islands,  in 
secluded  mountains,  in  deserts.  We  understand  their  backward  condition  in  parts 
of  the  earth  which  offer  so  few  facilities  for  agriculture  and  cattle-breeding  as 
Australia,  the  Arctic  regions,  or  the  extreme  north  and  south  of  America.  In  the 
insecurity  of  incompletely  developed  resources,  we  can  see  the  chain  which  hangs 
heavily  on  their  feet,  and  confines  their  movements  within  a  narrow  space.  As  a 
consequence,  their  numbers  are  small,  and  from  this  again  results  the  small  total 
amount  of  intellectual  and  physical  accomplishment,  the  rarity  of  eminent  men. 
the  absence  of  the  salutary  pressure  exercised  by  surrounding  masses  on  the 
activity  and  forethought  of  the  individual,  which  operates  in  the  division  of 
society  into  classes,  and  the  promotion  of  a  wholesome  division  of  labour.  A 
partial  consequence  of  this  insecurity  of  resources  is  the  instability  of  natural 
races.  A  nomadic  strain  runs  through  them  all,  rendering  easier  to  them  the  utter 
incompleteness  of  their  unstable  political  and  economical  institutions,  even  when 
an  indolent  agriculture  seems  to  tie  them  to  the  soil.  Thus  it  often  comes  about 
that  in  spite  of  abundantly-provided  and  well-tended  means  of  culture,  their  life  is 
desultory,  wasteful  of  power,  unfruitful.  This  life  has  no  inward  consistency,  no 
secure  growth  ;  it  is  not  the  life  in  which  the  germs  of  civilization  first  grew  up  to 
the  grandeur  in  which  we  frequently  find  them  at  the  beginnings  of  what  we  call 
history.  It  is  full  rather  of  fallings-away  from  civilization,  and  dim  memories 
from  civilized  spheres  which  in  many  cases  must  have  existed  long  before  the 
commencement  of  history  as  we  have  it.  If,  in  conclusion,  we  are  to  indicate 
concisely  how  we  conceive  the  position  of  these  races  as,  compared  with  those  to 
which  we  belong,  we  should  say,  from  the  point  of  view  of  civilization  these  races 
form  a  stratum  below  us,  while  in  natural  parts  and  dispositions  they  stand  in 
some  respects,  so  far  as  can  be  seen,  on  a  level  with  us,  in  others  not  much  lower. 
But  this  idea  of  a  stratum  must  not  be  understood  in  the  sense  of  forming  the 
next  lower  stage  of  development  through  which  we  ourselves  had  to  pass,  but  as 
combined  and  built  up  of  elements  which  have  remained  persistent,  mingled  with 
others  which  have  been  pushed  aside  or  dropped  into  the  rear.  There  is  thus  a 
strong  nucleus  of  positive  attributes  in  the  "  natural "  races  ;  and  therein  lies  the 
value  and  advantage  of  studying  them.  The  negative  conception  which  sees  only 
what  they  lack  in  comparison  with  us  is  a  short-sighted  under-estimate. 

By  the  word  "  civilization  "  or  "  culture ''  we  denote  usually  the  sum  of  all  the 
acquirements  at  a  given  time  of  the  human  intelligence.  When  we  speak  of 
stages,  of  higher  and  lower,  of  semi-civilization,  of  civilized  and  "  natural  "  races,  we 
apply  to  the  various  civilizations  of  the  earth  a  standard  which  we  take  from  the 
degree  that  we  have  ourselves  attained.  Civilization  means  our  civilization.  Let 
us  assume  that  the  highest  and  richest  display  of  what  we  conceive  by  the  term  is 
to  be  found  among  ourselves,  and  it  must  appear  of  the  highest  importance  for 
the  understanding  of  the  thing  itself  to  trace  back  the  unfolding  of  this  flower  to 
its  germ.     We  shall  only  attain  our  aim  of  getting  an  insight  into  the  nature  and 


NATURE,  RISE,  AND  SPREAD   OF  CIVILIZATION  25 

essence  of  civilisation  when  we  understand  the  impelling  force  which  has  evolved 
it  from  its  first  beginning. 

Every  people  has  intellectual  gifts,  and  develops  them  in  its  daily  life.  Each 
can  claim  a  certain  sum  of  knowledge  and  power  which  represents  its  civilization. 
But  the  difference  between  the  various  "  sums  of  acquirement  of  the  intelligence  " 
resides  not  only  in  their  magnitude,  but  in  their  power  of  growth.  To  use  an 
image,  a  civilized  race  is  like  a  mighty  tree  which  in  the  growth  of  centuries  has 
raised  itself  to  a  bulk  and  permanency  far  above  the  lowly  and  transitory  condition 
of  races  deficient  in  civilization.  There  are  plants  which  die  off  every  year,  and 
others  that  from  herbs  become  mighty  trees.  The  distinction  lies  in  the  power 
of  retaining,  piling  up,  and  securing  the  results  of  each  individual  year's  growth. 
So  would  even  this  transitory  growth  of  savage  races — which  have  in  fact  been 
jCalled  the  undergrowth  of  peoples — beget  something  permanent,  draw  every  new 
generation  higher  towards  the  light,  and  afford  it  firmer  supports  in  the  achieve- 
ments of  predecessors,  if  the  impulse  to  retain  and  secure  were  operative  in  it. 
But  this  is  lacking  ;  and  so  it  befalls  that  all  these  plants  destined  for  a  larger 
growth  remain  on  the  ground  and  perish  in  misery,  striving  for  the  air  and  light 
which  above  they  might  have  enjoyed  to  the  full.  Civilization  is  the  product  of 
many  generations  of  men. 

The  confinement,  in  space  as  in  time,  which  isolates  huts,  villages,  races,  no 
less  than  successive  generations,  involves  the  negation  of  culture  ;  in  its  opposite, 
the  intercourse  of  contemporaries  and  the  interdependence  of  ancestors  and 
successors,  lies  the  possibility  of  development.  The  union  of  contemporaries 
secures  the  retention  of  culture,  the  linking  of  generations  its  unfolding.  The 
development  of  civilization  is  a  process  of  hoarding.  The  hoards  grow  of  them- 
selves so  soon  as  a  retaining  power  watches  over  them.  In  all  domains  of 
human  creation  and  operation  we  shall  see  the  basis  of  all  higher  development 
in  intercourse.  Only  through  co-operation  and  mutual  help,  whether  between 
contemporaries,  whether  from  one  generation  to  another,  has  mankind  succeeded  in 
climbing  to  the  stage  of  civilization  on  which  its  highest  members  now  stand.  On 
the  nature  and  extent  of  this  intercourse  the  growth  depends.  Thus  the  numerous 
small  assemblages  of  equal  importance,  formed  by  the  family  stocks,  in  which  the 
individual  had  no  freedom,  were  less  favourable  to  it  than  the  larger  communi- 
ties and  states  of  the  modern  world,  with  their  encouragement  to  individual 
competition. 

As  the  essential  feature  in  the  highest  development  of  culture,  we  note  the 
largest  and  most  intimate  interdependence  among  themselves  and  with  past 
generations  of  all  fellow-strivers  after  it ;  and  as  a  result  of  it,  the  largest  possible 
sum  of  achievement  and  acquisition.  Between  this  and  the  opposite  extreme  lie 
all  the  intermediate  stages  which  we  comprise  under  the  name  "  semi-civilization." 
This  notion  of  a  "  half-way  house  "  deserves  a  few  words.  When  we  see  energetic- 
ally at  work  in  the  highest  civilization  the  forces  which  retain,  as  well  as  those 
concerned  with  extending  and  reshaping,  the  building,  in  semi-civilization  it  is 
essentially  the  former  which  are  called  into  most  activity,  while  the  latter  remain 
behind  and  thereby  bring  about  the  inferiority  of  that  state  of  things.  The  one- 
sidedness  and  incompleteness  of  semi-civilization  lie  on  the  side  of  intellectual 
progress,  while  on  the  material  side  development  sets  in  sooner.  Two  hundred 
years  ago,  when  Europe  and  North  America  had  not  yet  taken  the  giant's  stride 


26  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

which  steam,  iron,  and  electricity  have  rendered  possible,  China  and  Japan  caused 
the  greatest  astonishment  to  European  travellers  by  their  achievements  in 
agriculture,  manufactures,  and  trade,  and  even  by  their  canals  and  roads,  which 
have  now  fallen  far  towards  dilapidation.  But  Europeans,  and  the  daughter  races 
in  America  and  Australia,  have  in  the  last  two  hundred  years  not  only  caught  up 
this  start,  but  gone  far  ahead.  Here  we  may  perceive  the  solution  of  the  riddle 
presented  by  Chinese  civilization,  both  in  the  height  it  has  reached  and  its 
stationary  character,  and  indeed  by  all  semi-civilization.  What  but  the  light  in 
free  intellectual  creation  has  made  the  west  so  far  outrun  the  east  ?  Voltaire 
hits  the  point  when  he  says  that  Nature  has  given  the  Chinese  the  organs  for 

I  discovering  all  that  is  useful  to  them  but  not  for  going  any  further.  They  have 
become  great  in  the  useful,  in  the  arts  of  practical  life ;  while  we  are  indebted  to 
them  for  no  one  deeper  insight  into  the  connection  and  causes  of  phenomena,  for 
no  single  theory. 

Does  this  lack  arise  from  a  deficiency  in  their  endowments,  or  does  it  lie  in 
the  rigidity  of  their  social  and  political  organisation,  which  favours  mediocrity  and 
suppresses  genius  ?  Since  it  is  maintained  through  all  changes  of  their  organisa- 
tion, we  must  decide  for  the  defect  in  their  endowments,  which  also  is  the  sole 
cause  of  the  rigidity  in  their  social  system.  No  doubt  the  future  alone  can  give 
a  decisive  answer,  for  it  will  in  the  first  place  have  to  be  shown  whether  and  how 
far  these  races  will  progress  on  the  ways  of  civilization  which  Europe  and  North 
America  vie  in  pointing  out  to  them  ;  for  there  has  long  been  no  doubt  that  they 
will  or  must  set  foot  on  them.  But  we  shall  not  come  to  the  solution  of  this 
question  if  we  approach  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  complete  civilization,  which 
sees  in  the  incompleteness  of  China  and  Japan  the  signs  of  a  thoroughly  lower 
stage  of  the  whole  of  life,  and  frequently  at  the  same  time  signs  of  an  entire 
absence  of  hope  in  all  attempts  at  a  higher  flight.  If  they  possess  in  themselves 
only  the  capacities  for  semi-civilization,  the  need  of  progress  will  bring  more  powerful 
organs  to  their  head  and  gradually  modify  the  mass  of  the  people  by  immigration 
from  Europe  and  North  America.  This  process  may  have  first  raised  to  its  present 
height  many  a  civilized  race  of  to-day;  we  may  refer  to  the  Russians  and 
Hungarians,  and  to  the  fact  that  millions  of  German,  and  other  immigrants  have 
stimulated  in  many  ways  the  progress  of  these  semi-Mongols  in  Europe. 

The  sum  of  the  acquirements  of  civilization  in  every  stage  and  in  every  race 
is  composed  of  material  and  intellectual  possessions.      It   is  important  to   keep 

'  them  apart,  since  they  are  of  very  different  significance  for  the  intrinsic  value  of 
the  total  civilization,  and  above  all  for  its  capacity  of  development.  They  are  not 
acquired  with  like  means  nor  with  equal  ease,  nor  simultaneously.  The  material 
lies  at  the  base  of  the  intellectual.  Intellectual  creations  come  as  the  luxury 
after  bodily  needs  are  satisfied.  Every  question,  therefore,  as  to  the  origin  of 
civilization  resolves  itself  into  the  question  :  what  favours  the  development  of  its 
material  foundations  ?  Now  here  we  must  in  the  first  place  proclaim  that  when 
the  way  to  this  development  is  once  opened  by  the  utilisation  of  natural  means 

for  the  aims  of  man,  it  is  not  Nature's  wealth  in  material  but  in  force or  rather,  to 

put  it  better,  in  stimulus  to  force, — which  must  be  most  highly  estimated.  The 
gifts  of  Nature  most  valuable  for  man  are  those  through  which  his  latent 
sources  of  force  are  thrown  open  in  permanent  activity.  Obviously  this  can 
least  be  brought  about  by  that  wealth  or  so-called  bounty  of  Nature  which  spares 


NATURE,  RISE,  AND  SPREAD   OF  CIVILIZATION  27 

him  certain  labours  that  under  other  circumstances  would  be  necessary.  The 
warmth  of  the  tropics  makes  the  task  of  housing  and  clothing  himself  much 
lighter  than  in  the  temperate  zone.  If  we  compare  the  possibilities  which  Nature 
can  afford  with  those  that  dwell  in  the  spirit  of  man,  the  distinction  is  very- 
forcible,  and  lies  mainly  in  the  following  directions.  The  gifts  of  Nature  in  them- 
selves are  in  the  long  run  unchangeable  in  kind  and  quantity,  but  the  supply  of 
the  most  necessary  varies  from  year  to  year  and  cannot  be  reckoned  on.  They 
are  bound  up  with  certain  external  circumstances,  confined  to  certain  zones, 
particular  elevations,  various  kinds  of  soil.  Man's  power  over  them  is  originally 
limited  by  narrow  barriers  which  he  can  widen  but  never  break  down  by  develop- 
ing the  forces  of  his  intellect  and  will.  His  own  forces,  on  the  contrary,  belong 
entirely  to  him.  He  cannot  only  dispose  of  their  application  but  can  also 
multiply  and  strengthen  them  without  any  limit  that  has,  at  least  up  to  the 
present,  been  drawn.  Nothing  gives  a  more  striking  lesson  of  the  way  in  which 
the  utilisation  of  Nature  depends  upon  the  will  of  man  than  the  likeness  of  the 
conditions  in  which  all  savage  races  live  in  all  parts  of  the  earth,  in  all  climates, 
in  all  altitudes. 

It  is  due  to  no  accident  that  the  word  "  culture  "  also  denotes  the  tillage  of  the 
ground.  Here  is  its  etymological  root ;  here,  too,  the  root  of  all  that  we  under- 
stand by  it  in  its  widest  sense.^  The  storage  by  means  of  labour  of  a  sum  of 
force  in  a  clod  of  earth  is  the  best  and  most  promising  beginning  of  that  non- 
dependence  upon  Nature  which  finds  its  mark  in  the  domination  of  her  by  the 
intellect.  It  is  thus  that  link  is  most  easily  added  to  link  in  the  chain  of  develop- 
ment, for  in  the  yearly  repetition  of  labour  on  the  same  soil  creative  force  is 
concentrated  and  tradition  secured ;  and  thus  the  fundamental  conditions  of 
civilization  come  to  birth. 

The  natural  conditions  which  permit  the  amassing  of  wealth  from  the  fertility 
of  the  soil  and  the  labour  bestowed  thereon,  are  thus  undoubtedly  of  the  greatest 
importance  in  the  development  of  civilization.  But  it  is  unsafe  to  say  with  Buckle 
that  there  is  no  example  in  history  of  a  country  that  has  become  civilized  by  its 
own  exertions  without  possessing  some  one  of  those  conditions  in  a  highly 
favourable  form.  For  the  first  existence  of  mankind,  warm  moist  regions  blessed 
with  abundance  of  fruits  were  unquestionably  most  desirable,  and  it  is  easiest  to 
conceive  of  the  original  man  as  a  dweller  in  the  tropics.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
if  we  are  to  conceive  of  civilization  as  a  development  of  human  forces  upon  Nature 
and  by  means  of  Nature,  this  can  only  have  come  about  through  some  compulsion 
setting  man  amid  less  favourable  conditions  where  he  had  to  look  after  himself 
with  more  care  than  in  the  soft  cradle  of  the  tropics.  This  points  to  the  temperate 
zones,  in  which  we  may  no  less  surely  see  the  cradle  of  civilization  than  in  the 
tropics  that  of  the  race.  In  the  high  plateaux  of  Mexico  and  Upper  Peru  we 
have  land  less  fruitful  than  the  surrounding  lowlands,  and  accordingly  in  these 
plateaux  we  find  the  highest  development  in  all  America.  Even  now,  with 
cultivation  carried  to  a  high  pitch,  they  look  as  dry  and  barren  as  steppes 
compared  with  the  luxuriant  natural  beauties  of  many  places  in  the  lowlands, 
or   on   the   terraces   not   a   day's  journey  distant.      In  tropical  and  sub-tropical 

^  [Of  course  its  employment  to  denote  the  cultivation  or  refinement  of  the  mind  and  manners  (which  though 
found  in  classical  Latin  seems  comparatively  recent  in  English)  is  a  mere  metaphor,  without  any  suggestion  of 
the  fact  noticed  in  this  paragraph.] 


28  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

•countries  the  fertility  of  the  soil  generally  diminishes  at  high  elevations,  and  in 
whatever  climatic  conditions,  high  plateaux  are  never  so  fruitful  as  lowland,  hilly 
countries,  and  mountain  slopes.  Now  these  civilizations  were  both  situated  on 
high  plateaux  ;  of  that  in  Mexico,  the  centre  and  capital,  Tenochtitlan  —  the 
modern  city  of  Mexico — lay  at  a  height  of  7560  feet,  while  Cuzco,  in  Peru, 
is  no  less  than  11,500.  In  both  these  regions  temperature  and  rainfall  are 
considerably  lower  than  in  the  greater  part  of  Central  and  South  America. 

This  brings  us  to  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that,  though  civilization  in  its 
first  growth  is  intimately  connected  with  the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  as  it  develops 
farther  there  is  no  necessary  relation  between  the  two.  As  a  nation  grows  its 
civilization  sets  itself  free  from  the  soil,  and,  in  proportion  as  it  develops,  creates 
for  itself  ever  fresh  organs  which  serve  for  other  purposes  than  enabling  it  to  take 
root.  One  might  say  that  in  agriculture  there  resides  a  natural  weakness,  which 
may  be  explained  not  only  through  want  of  familiarity  with  weapons,  but  through 
the  desire  of  possession  and  a  settled  life  enfeebling  to  courage  and  enterprise. 
We  find,  on  the  contrary,  the  highest  expression  of  political  force  among  the 
hunter  and  shepherd  races,  who  are  in  many  respects  the  natural  antipodes  of  the 
agriculturists — the  shepherds  especially,  who  unite  agility  with  the  faculty  of 
moving  in  masses,  and  discipline  with  force.  The  very  faculties  which  are  a 
hindrance  to  the  agriculturist  in  developing  that  power,  can  here  be  turned  to 
advantageous  account, — the  absence  of  settled  abode,  mobility,  the  exercise  of 
strength,  courage,  and  skill  with  weapons.  And,  as  we  look  over  the  earth,  we  find 
that  in  fact  the  firmest  organisations  among  the  so-called  semi-civilized  races  result 
from  a  blend  of  these  elements.  The  distinctly  agricultural  Chinese  have  been 
ruled  first  by  the  Mongols,  then  by  the  Mantchus ;  the  Persians  by  sovereigns 
from  Turkestan  ;  the  Egyptians  successively  by  Hyksos,  or  shepherd  kings,  Arabs, 
and  Turks — all  nomadic  races.  In  Central  Africa  the  nomadic  Wahuma  founded 
and  maintained  the  stable  states  of  Uganda  and  Unyoro,  while  in  the  countries 
that  surround  the  Soudan  every  single  state  was  founded  by  invaders  from  the 
desert.  In  Mexico  the  rougher  Aztecs  subdued  the  more  refined  agricultural 
Toltecs.  In  the  history  of  places  in  the  borderland  between  the  steppe  and 
cultivated  lands  a  series  of  cases  will  be  found  establishing  this  rule,  which  may 
be  recognised  as  a  historical  law.  Thus  the  reason  why  the  less  fertile  high 
plateaux  and  the  districts  nearest  to  them  have  been  so  favourable  to  the  develop- 
ment of  higher  civilization  and  the  formation  of  civilized  states,  is  not  because  they 
offered  a  cooler  climate  and  consequent  inducement  to  agriculture,  but  because  they 
brought  about  the  union  of  the  conquering  and  combining  powers  of  the  nomads 
-with  the  industry  and  labour  of  the  agriculturists  who  crowded  into  the  oases  of 
cultivation  but  could  not  form  states.  That  lakes  have  played  a  certain  part  2.% points 
(Tappui  and  centres  of  crystallisation  for  such  states,  as  seen  in  the  cases  of  Lake 
Titicaca  in  Peru,  the  lagoons  of  Tezcoco  and  Chalco  in  Mexico,  Lakes  Ukerewe 
and  Tchad  in  the  interior  of  Africa,  is  an  interesting  but  less  essential  phenomenon. 
Beyond  the  historic  operation  of  climatic  peculiarities  in  favouring  or  checking 
civilization,  diff-erences  of  climate  interfere  most  eff-ectually  by  producing  large 
regions  where  similar  conditions  prevail— regions  of  civilization  which  are  disposed 
hke  a  belt  round  the  globe.  These  may  be  called  civilized  zones.  The  real  zone 
of  civilization,  according  to  all  the  experience  which  history  up  to  the  present  day 
puts  at  the  disposal  of  mankind,  is  the  temperate.      More  than  one  group  of  facts 


NATURE,  RISE,  AND  SPREAD   OF  CIVILIZATION 


29 


corroborates  this.  The  most  important  historical  developments,  most  organically 
connected,  most  steadily  progressing  in  and  by  means  of  this  connection,  and 
externally  most  exciting,  belong  to  this  zone.  That  it  was  no  accident  which  made 
the  heart  of  ancient  history  beat  in  this  zone  on  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  we  may 
learn  from  the  persistency  of  the  most  effective  historical  development  in  the 
temperate  zone  even  after  the  circle  of  history  had  been  widened  beyond  Europe, 
ay,  even  after  the  transplantation  of  European  culture  to  those  new  worlds  which 
sprang  up  in  America,  Africa,  and  Australia.  No  doubt  an 
infinite  number  of  threads  are  plaited  into  this  great  web  , 
but  since  all  that  races  do  rests  ultimately  upon  the  deeds  of 
individuals,  the  one  which  has  been  most  fruitful  in  results  is 
undoubtedly  the  crowding  together  in  the  temperate  zone  of 
the  greatest  possible  number  of  individuals  most  capable  of 
achievement,  and  the  arrangement  in  succession  and  compre 
hension  of  the  individual  civilized  districts  in  one  civilized 
belt,  where  the  conditions  were  most  favourable  to  inter- 
course, exchange,  the  increasing  and  securing  of  the  store  of 
culture  ;  where,  in  other  words,  the  maintenance  and  develop 
ment  of  culture  could  display  its  activity  on  the  largest 
geographical  foundation. 

Old  semi -civilizations,  whose  relics  we  meet  with  in 
tropical  countries,  belong  to  a  period  when  civilization  did 
not  make  such  mighty  demands  upon  the  labours  of  indi 
viduals,  and  when  for  that  very  reason  its  blossom  sooner 
faded.  A  study  of  the  geographical  extension  of  old  and 
new  civilization  seems  to  show  that  as  the  tastes  of  civiliza 
tion  grew,  the  belt  comprising  it  shrank  into  the  regions 
where  the  great  capacity  for  achievement  co-existed  with  the 
temperate  climates.  This  observation  is  important  for  the 
history  of  the  primitive  human  race  and  of  its  extension,  and 
for  the  interpretation  of  the  relics  of  civilization  in  tropical 
countries.  Another  mode  in  which  civilization  may  perish  is 
through  the  absorption  of  higher  races  by  lower,  who  profit 
by  the  advantage  of  better  adaptation  to  conditions  of  hard- 
ship. The  despised  Skraelings  have  merged  themselves  in 
the  Northmen  of  Greenland.  And  has  not  every  group  of 
Europeans  that  has  penetrated  the  Arctic  ice-wastes,  during 
the  period  of  its  stay  in  those  dreary  fields,  been  obliged  to  accustom  itself 
to  Eskimo  habits,  and  to  learn  the  arts  and  dexterities  of  the  Arctic  people  in 
order  successfully  to  maintain  the  fight  with  Nature's  powers  in  the  Polar  zone  ? 
But  so  has  many  a  bit  of  colonisation  on  tropical  and  polar  soil  ended  in  falling 
to  the  level  of  the  wants  of  the  natives.  The  colonising  power  of  the  Portuguese 
in  Africa,  the  Russians  in  Asia,  lies  in  their  ability  to  do  this  more  effectually 
than  their  competitors. 

Yet  a  civilization,  self-contained  and  complete,  even  with  imperfect  means,  is 
morally  and  aesthetically  a  higher  phenomenon  than  one  which  is.  decomposing  in 
the  process  of  upward  effort  and  growth.  For  this  reason  the  first  results  of  the 
contact  between  a  higher  and  a  lower  civilization  are  not  delightful  where  the 


Indian  Mirror  from  Texas, 
(Stoclcholm  Ethnograph- 
ical Museum. ) 


30  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

higher  is  represented  by  the  scum  of  a  world,  the  lower  by  people  complete  in  a 
narrow  space  and  contented  with  the  filling  up  of  their  own  narrow  circle.  Think 
of  the  first  settlements  of  whalers  and  runaway  sailors  in  countries  rich  in  art  and 
tradition  like  New  Zealand  and  Hawaii,  and  of  the  effects  produced  by  the  first 
brandy-shop  and  brothel.  In  the  case  of  North  America,  Schoolcraft  first  pointed 
out  the  rapid  decay  which  befell  all  native  industrial  activity  as  a  result  of  the 
introduction  by  the  white  men  of  more  suitable  tools,  vessels,  clothing,  and  so 
forth.  European  trade  provided  easily  everything  which  hitherto  had  had  to  be 
produced  by  dint  of  long-protracted,  wearisome  labour ;  ^  and  native  activity  not 
only  fell  off  in  the  field  where  it  had  achieved  important  results,  but  saw  itself 
weakened,  and  lost  the  sense  of  necessity  and  self-reliance,  and  so  in  course  of 
time  art  itself  perished.  As  we  know,  the  same  is  going  on  to-day  in  Polynesia, 
in  Africa,  and  among  the  poorest  Eskimo.  In  Africa  it  is  a  declared  rule  that  on 
the  coast  you  have  a  region  of  decomposition,  behind  that  a  higher  civilization, 
and  the  best  of  all  in  the  untouched  far  interior.  Even  the  art  of  Japan, 
independent  as  it  was,  deteriorated  after  a  glimpse  of  artistically  inferior  European 
patterns. 


§   s.  LANGUAGE 

Language  is  a  universal  faculty  of  modern  mankind — Power  of  natural  races  to  learn  languages — Changes  in 
languages — Is  there  a  relation  between  racial  and  linguistic  peculiarities  ? — Origin,  growth,  and  decay  of 
language— Fossil  words  :  dialect  and  language— Relation  between  language  and  degree  of  civilization- 
Poor  and  rich  languages — Modes  of  expressing  number  and  colour — Gesture — Speech — Writing. 

"  Man  is  so  endowed,  so  circumstanced,  and  such  is  his  history,  that  speech  is 
everywhere  and  without  exception  his  possession.  And  as  speech  is  the  property 
of  all  men,  so  is  it  the  privilege  of  humanity ;  only  man  possesses  speech." 
Thus  Herder;  and  we  may  add  that  mankind  possesses  it  in  no  materially  different 
measure.  Every  people  can  learn  the  language  of  every  other.  We  see  daily 
examples  of  the  complete  mastery  of  foreign  languages,  and  therein  the  civilized 
races  have  no  absolute  superiority  over  the  savage.  Many  of  the  persons  in  high 
position  in  Uganda  speak  Swahili,  some  Arabic  ;  many  of  the  Nyamwesi  have 
learnt  the  same  language.  In  the  trading  centres  of  the  West  African  coast 
there  are  Negroes  enough  who  know  two  or  three  languages ;  and  in  the  Indian 
schools  in  Canada  nothing  astonishes  the  missionaries  so  much  as  the  ease  with 
which  the  youthful  Redskin  picks  up  French  and  English. 

The  media  of  language,  sounds  no  less  than  the  accompanying  gestures,  are 
very  similar  all  the  earth  over;  and  the  inner  structure  of  language  not  very 
discrepant.  It  may  be  said  that  human  language  is  one  at  the  root,  which  strikes 
deep  into  the  human  mind  ;  but  it  has  parted  into  many  very  various  branches  and 
twigs.  Innumerable  languages,  diverging  from  each  other  in  every  degree,  dialects, 
sister  and  daughter  languages,  independent  families  of  languages,  fill  the  homes 
and  homesteads  of  mankind  with  varied  tones.  Some  races  can  still  pretty  well 
understand   each   other ;    in    some   languages,   a   little   farther   removed,   even    a 

1  [Cf.  Lang,  Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  187,  "  He  created  the  white  man  to  make  tools  for 
the  poor  Indians,"  said  the  Winnibagoes  to  a  white  inquirer.] 


LANGUAGE  31 


superficial  observer  detects  similarities  ;  in  others  these  lie  so  deep  that  only- 
science  can  find  them.  Lastly,  a  great  number  are  to  all  appearance  quite 
different — not  only  in  the  words  but  in  their  structure,  in  the  relations  they 
express,  the  parts  of  speech  which  they  distinguish.  But  these  distinctions  are 
by  no  means  associated  with  mental  differences  in  the  speakers.  Individuals  of  every 
variety  of  endowment  use  the  same  language,  while  minds  equally  endowed  and 
working  on  the  same  lines  cannot  make  themselves  understood  to  each  other. 
Nor  does  language  go  with  geographical,  often  not  with  racial,  distinctions.  How 
much  wider  is  the  gap  between  the  Englishman  and  the  English-speaking  Negro 
than  that  between  the  Chinese  and  the  Micronesian  who  linguistically  is  so  far 
from  him  !  The  importance  of  language  to  ethnology  must  be  sought  elsewhere 
than  in  proof  of  racial  affinity  based  on  affinity  of  speech.  Language  must 
always  appear  as  the  preliminary  condition  to  all  the  work  of  civilization  among 
mankind.  It  may  be  called  the  first  and  most  important,  even  the  characteristic, 
implement  of  man.  But,  like  every  other  tool,  it  is  liable  to  alteration.  In  the 
course  of  centuries  a  word  can  assume  very  various  meanings,  can  disappear 
altogether,  can  be  replaced  by  some  expressly-invented  word,  or  one  taken  from 
another  language.  Like  a  tool,  it  is  laid  aside  and  taken  up  again.  Not  only 
do  individuals  lose  their  mother-tongue,  like  Narcisse  Pelletier  who,  after  twelve 
years  in  the  Australian  bush,  became  himself  a  savage,  or  the  Akka  Mianis  who, 
brought  as  boys  to  Italy,  had  in  a  few  years  wholly  forgotten  their  native  speech  ; 
but  whole  races  abandon  one  language  and  take  to  another,  as  if  it  were  a  suit  of 
clothes.  Some  of  the  acquirements  of  civilization  are  more  permanent  than  language, 
as  the  science  of  cattle-breeding.  If  the  comparative  study  of  religion  teaches  us 
that  the  names  change  while  the  thing  remains,  we  may  find  here  good  evidence  for 
the  higher  degree  of  changeableness  shown  by  language  in  comparison  with  other 
ethnographic  characteristics.  We  should  not  think  it  necessary  to  linger  over 
a  point  so  obvious  to  all  who  know  anything  about  the  life  of  races,  were  it  not 
that  linguistic  classification  is  still  apt  to  be  mixed  up  with  anthropology  and 
ethnography.  Even  so  great  an  authority  on  philology  as  Lepsius  has  found 
it  necessary  to  protest  against  the  notion  that  races  and  languages  correspond  in 
origin  and  affinities,  as  is  still  far  too  largely  supposed.  "  The  diffusion  and 
mingling  of  races  goes  its  way  :  that  of  languages,  though  constantly  affected  by 
the  other,  its  own — often  very  different.  Languages  are  the  most  individual 
creation  of  races,  often  the  most  immediate  expression  of  their  minds ;  but  they 
often  escape  from  their  creators,  and  overspread  great  foreign  peoples  and  races, 
or  die  out,  while  those '  who  formerly  used  them  live  on,  speaking  quite  other 
tongues."  It  is  clear  that  in  the  light  of  such  deeper  considerations,  conceptions 
like  that  of  an  Indo-Germanic  race,  a  Semitic  race,  a  Bantu  race,  are  not  only 
valueless,  but  to  be  wholly  rejected  as  misleading ;  and  that,  incalculably  great  as 
may  have  been  the  value  and  influence  of  languages  as  a  support  and  staff  in  the 
mental  development  of  mankind,  their  importance  as  an  indication  of  distinctions 
within  mankind  is  uncommonly  small.  While  hunting-savages  like  the  Bushmen 
speak  a  finely-constructed  and  copious  language,  we  find  among  the  race  which  has 
developed  the  highest  and  most  permanent  civilization  of  Asia  what,  according  to 
evolutionary  views,  must  be  a  most  simple  language, — the  uninflected  Chinese 
with  its  450  root  words,  which  may  be  put  together  like  pieces  in  a  puzzle  and 
taken  apart  again,  remaining  all  the  time  unaltered.      Under  these  circumstances 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


it  is  no  doubt  possible  to  make  a  pedigree  of  languages,  but  we  cannot  be  expected 
to  believe  that  anything  is  thereby  gained  towards  the  pedigree  of  mankind,  when 
we  iind  a  poorly  organised  language  spoken  by  one  of  the  highest  races,  and  a 
highly  organised  one  by  one  of  the  lowest.  The  newer  philology  appears  indeed 
to  promise  less  than  formerly  in  the  way  of  a  universal  pedigree  of  languages. 
Monosyllabic  speech,  which  once  grew  at  the  root  of  the  tree  of  language,  is  now 
thought  to  owe  its  poverty  and  stiffness  rather  to  retrogression  than  to  undevelop- 
ment,  while  the  South  African  clicks,  once  compared  with  the  chatter  of  birds  and 
other  animals,  are  now  regarded  less  as  survivals  from  the  brute  than  as  the 
characteristic  expression  of  linguistic  indolence  and  decay.  We  hear  no  more 
about  remains  of  the  primitive  speech,  but  see  in  this  domain  only  development 
and  retrogression. 

The  universality  of  language  is  the  simple  result  of  the  fact  that  all  portions 
of  mankind  have  existed  long  enough  to  develop  the  germs  of  their  capacity  for 
speech  to  the  point  at  which  we  can  apply  the  term  language.  Not  only 
Haeckel's  Alali  has  long  passed  into  oblivion ;  all  his  successors  with  their 
imperfect  or  childish  speech  are  no  more.  But  here  the  universalness  extends 
farther ;  modern  languages  are  organised  to  a  very  similar  pitch.  Herein 
language  is  like  certain  universal  arts  or  implements,  which  are  just  as  good 
among  savage  as  among  civilized  folk.  Does  not  the  like  hold  good  with  the 
universal  spread  of  the  religious  idea,  the  artistic  impulse,  the  simpler  utensil  ? 
At  the  basis  of  speech  lies  the  desire  to  impart ;  it  is  thus  the  product  not  of  the 
single  man  but  of  Man  in  society  and  history.  For  the  sake  of  and  by  means  of 
imparting  we  acquire  our  earliest  knowledge :  it  develops  and  enriches  the 
language  ;  it  creates  its  unity  by  limiting  the  exuberance  of  dialectic  variations. 
We  speak,  to  be  understood  ;  we  hear  and  learn,  to  understand  ;  we  speak  as  is 
intelligible,  as  others  do,  not  as  we  ourselves  want  to  do.  So  far  speech  is  the 
dearest  and  most  universal  sign  of  the  important  effect  of  social  life  in  limiting 
individualism. 

All  languages  now  existing  are  old  in  themselves  or  descended  from  old 
families  ;  all  bear  the  traces  of  historic  development ;  all  are  far  from  their  first 
origin,  and  for  their  interpretation  philology  has  now  laid  aside  the  "  bow-wow " 
theory.  Itself  drawn  from  the  mobile  mouth  of  the  living  man,  and  remaining 
close  to  the  mind,  the  starting-point  of  living  expression,  language  bears  the 
stamp  of  life,  constant  change.  Even  if  it  survives  the  generations  of  those  who 
spoke  it,  yet  it  lives  with  them  and  undergoes  changes  ;  dying  at  last  itself  The 
old  Egyptian  died  even  before  the  Egyptian  civilization  ;  old  Greek  did  not  long 
survive  the  independent  existence  of  the  Greek  race  ;  Latin  fell  with  Rome.' 
These  three  languages  did  not  die  childless  ;  they  survive  in  Coptic,  Modern 
Greek,  and  the  Romance  languages  respectively.  More  rarely  do  languages  perish 
without  successors  as  Gothic  has  done.  Yet  even  this  has  been  survived  by 
languages  nearly  akin  to  it,  which  represent  the  family.      Basque,  standing  solitary 

1  [This  statement  seems  to  need  qualification.  Muller  and  Donaldson  give  several  pages  of  names  of  "old" 
Greek  authors  subsequent  to  B.  c.  146,  including  Meleager,  Dionysius,  Strabo,  Philo  Judaeus,  Epictetus,  Plutarch, 
Appian,  Galen,  Lucian,  Clement,  Eusebius,  Chrysostom,  Longus,  Anna  Comnena,  Demetrius  Chalcondyles.  ■ 
As  to  Latin,  if  we  knew  when  the  "  fall  of  Rome  "  occurred  we  could  better  test  the  accuracy  of  the  illustration. . 
Certainly  the  language  continued  to  thrive  for  nearly  1000  years  after  the  removal  of  the  Emperor's  residence 
to  Byzantium.  But  to  say  that  a  language  dies  is  a  misleading  metaphor.  No  one  generation  notices  any 
material  change.] 


LANGUAGE  33 


as  it  does  with  no  near  kinship  to  any  contemporary  tongue,  will  die,  and  with  it 
a  primeval  family  will  become  extinct.  It  is  only  the  mutability  of  languages 
that  prevents  us  from  seeing  in  them  the  characteristic  marks  of  an  old  connection, 
the  support  of  that  uniformity  which  we  find  in  myths  and  material  objects. 
Yet  we  venture  to  predict  that  success  will  one  day  attend  the  effort  to  ascertain 
the  elements  of  speech  in  their  world-wide  distribution. 

Meantime  in  the  life  of  every  language  a  gradual  dying  off  and  renewal  is 
taking  place  in  many  forms.  Words  become  obsolete,  pass  out  of  use,  or  survive 
only  in  religion  and  poetry.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  since  i6i  i,  388  words 
have  become  obsolete  in  English.  There  are  besides  innumerable  changes  in 
pronunciation,  spelling,  and  meaning.  Old  forms  of  speech  still  in  use,  but  long 
become  unintelligible,  are  frequent  in  the  unthinking  life  of  the  natural  races. 
Thus  a  Fijian  in  battle  challenging  his  opponent,  shouts  Sai  tava  1  Sat  tava  !  Ka 
yau  mat  ka  yavia  a  bure,  that  is  "  Cut  up  !  Cut  up !  the  temple  receives." 
But  no  man  knows  what  the  words  mean,  though  they  are  held  to  be  very 
ancient.  How  with  new  things,  new  words  and  terms  of  speech  are  imported,  or 
rather  import  themselves,  into  language,  the  age  of  railways  and  steamers  has 
shown  ;  by  their  means  the  language  of  all  civilized  races  has  been  enriched  with 
hundreds  of  new  words.  The  Azandeh  or  Nyam-Nyams  assert  that  many  v/ords 
which  were  in  use  among  their  ancestors  are  at  present  no  longer  employed. 
Junker  believes  in  a  rapid  transformation  of  the  African  languages  ;  while  Lepsius 
attaches  little  value  to  their  store  of  words,  and  describes  even  their  syntactical 
usage  as  remarkably  unstable.  Alteration  is  naturally  more  frequent  in- unwritten 
languages  than  where  writing  has  produced  a  certain  petrifying  effect  on  speech  ; 
and  if  we  must  admit  the  assertion  of  philologists  that  the  life-blood  of  a  language 
is  to  be  found  not  in  its  written  form  but  in  dialects,  we  can  understand  that  we 
have  to  regard  languages  as  organisms  no  less  variable  than  plants  or  animals. 
While  writing  tends  to  fix  a  language  in  a  given  form,  the  more  fruitful  and  wider 
intercourse  of  races  that  have  writing  has  at  the  same  time  a  tendency  to  widen 
the  area  over  which  a  dialect  or  a  language  is  distributed.  We  may  put  it  that 
races  without  writing  speak  only  dialects,  while  languages  are  possessed  by  those 
alone  who  write.  But  where  is  the  boundary  between  dialect  and  language  ?  At 
the  present  day  we  understand  by  a  language  a  dialect  which  has  become  fixed 
by  writing  and  widely  spread  by  dint  of  intercourse.  Especially  is  the  literary 
language  rather  an  artificial  than  a  natural  form  of  speech.  Dialects  we  conceive 
as  languages  less  copious,  less  definitely  settled  and  brought  under  rule,  and  hence 
more  exposed  to  change,  even  of  an  arbitrary  kind.  But  this  is  only  so  long  as 
we  compare  them  with  written  languages.  Of  the  300  tribes  of  the  many- 
languaged  Colchis,  to  do  business  with  whom  the  Romans,  as  Pliny  tells  us, 
required  130  interpreters,  which  spoke  a  language,  which  a  dialect  ?  At  this  stage 
only  dialects  are  spoken,  every  tribe  having  its  own  ;  and  we  need  not  be  so  much 
surprised  at  the  Colchians  when  seventy  dialects  are  reckoned  in  modern  Greek. 
What  produces  language  and  what  preserves  dialects  we  can  see  by  comparing 
the  wide  diffusion  of  Burmese  in  the  thickly-peopled  countries  of  Burma,  Pegu, 
and  Arakan  with  their  brisk  commerce,  and  the  far  more  limited  area  of  languages 
in  the  hill  countries  of  the  Upper  Irawaddy,  where  Gordon  collected  twelve  dialects 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Manipur  alone,  and  where  often  thirty  or  forty  families 
speak  a  dialect  of  their  own,  unintelligible  to  others.      This  is  the  scale   by  which 

D 


34  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

we  have  to  measure  the  frequent  statements  as  to  the  immoderate  number  of 
languages  among  small  nations.  The  multiplicity  of  the  dialects  spoken  by  the 
Bushmen  which  show  differences  even  between  groups  separated  only  by  a  range 
of  hills  or  a  river,  is  referred  by  Moffat  exclusively  to  the  fact  of  their  stage  of 
culture  allowing  of  no  common  centre,  no  common  interests,  in  short  neither 
possessing  nor  producing  anything  which  might  contribute  to  the  fixing  of  a 
standard  language.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  the  language  of  the  Bechuana 
Bushmen,  the  Balala,  who  live  as  a  race  of  pariahs  with  and  among  the 
Bechuanas,  is  a  much-altered  idiom  showing  many  peculiarities  in  different  groups, 
while  fheir  masters  the  Bechuanas  maintain  and  propagate  their  language,  the 
Sechuana,  in  a  pure  form  by  means  of  public  discussions  and  frequent  meetings 
for  conversation,  singing,  and  the  like. 

Yet  we  must  beware  of  under-estimating  the  effect  of"  customary  speech,  which 
also  is  a  conservative  force,  and  assuming  a  too  easy  fluidity  in  linguistic  forms. 
We  learn  from  Schweinfurth  that  the  Djurs  and  Bellandas,  though  far  apart,  have 
preserved  the  Shillook  language  almost  unaltered.  The  latter  are  divided  from 
the  Djurs  by  the  whole  breadth  of  the  Bongos,  and  these  again  are  separated  from 
the  Shillooks.  Consider  too  the  slight  differences  in  the  most  distant  Bantu 
dialects.  We  can  only  assume  some  great  error  of  observation  when  S.  F, 
Waldeck,  writing  to  Jomard  in  1833  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Palenque,  says 
that  he  could  no  longer  use  a  vocabulary  which  had  only  been  prepared  since 
1820.  We  have  good  cause  to  know  how  carelessly  vocabularies  often  are 
compiled.  Even  in  the  best  of  those  made  by  English  or  Americans  for  savage 
languages  a  large  number  of  words  are,  owing  to  arbitrary  transliteration,  quite 
useless  for  a  Frenchman  or  German  in  intercourse  with  "  natives." 

In  any  case,  however,  it  may  be  taken  as  a  rule  that  the  larger  a  race  is,  the 
more  intimate  its  intercourse,  the  more  firmly  articulated  its  society,  the  more 
uniform  its  usages  and  opinions  ;  so  much  more  stable  will  its  language  be. 
Public  speaking,  popular  songs,  national  laws,  oracles,  exercise  in  a  lesser  degree 
the  same  influence  as  writing.  They  set  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  natural 
tendency  of  language  to  flow  into  the  countless  streams  of  dialect,  and  give 
permanence  to  speech-formation  which,  without  these  external  influences,  would 
have  enjoyed  but  a  transitory  existence. 

These  facts  show  clearly  where  we  have  to  look  for  the  real  and  essential 
distinctions  in  the  degrees  of  linguistic  development.  Permanent  growth 
enhances  the  value  of  language  as  of  civilization.  The  language  which  has 
means  to  express  anything  without  becoming  obscure  through  redundancy,  which 
offers  the  most  complete,  most  intelligible,  and  shortest  methods  of  expressing 
ideas,  whether  abstract  or  concrete,  will  have  reached  the  highest  stage  of  develop- 
ment. And  hence  it  would  follow  that  a  thorough  parallelism  rules  between  the 
development  of  language  and  that  of  culture,  since  the  highest  culture  requires 
and  creates  the  most  copious  means  of  spoken  expression.  Without  prejudice  to 
the  varieties  in  the  structure  of  language,  the  possessors  of  the  highest  culture 
will  thus  speak  a  language  which  deserves  the  name  of  a  first-class  implement. 
But  by  this  term  we  do  not  understand  merely  that  which  best  fulfils  the  end  for 
which  it  is  designed,  since  the  Australian  languages  in  all  their  poverty  perfectly 
subserve  the  simple  wants  of  those  who  speak  them.  We  rather  look  upon 
languages  as  special  organisms  with  a  development  of  their  own.     Just  as  in  the 


LANGUAGE  35 


class  of  mechanical  tools,  we  should  give  the  plough  a  higher  rank  than  the  axe, 
although  the  latter  fulfils  simple  needs  just  as  well  as  the  former  meets  greater 
requirements  ;  so  must  we  hold  the  supple  yet  firmly -articulated,  clear  though 
copious  languages  of  the  Indo-Germanic  family  of  more  account  than  the  poorer 
idioms  of  the  Bantu. 

But  if  the  language  of  a  race  be  the  measure  of  the  stage  of  civilization  it  has 
reached,  we  must  be  cautious  in  drawing  conclusions  from  one  to  the  other ;  for 
language  is  only  one  among  modes  of  expression,  and  has  its  own  life.  Least  of 
all  should  the  mode  in  which  it  deals  with  particular  conceptions  be  taken  as 
such  a  measure.  Counting  and  reckoning  are  doubtless  very  important  'things, 
upon  the  perfection  of  which  a  great  deal  of  the  mental  development,  and 
consequently  the  culture,  of  a  race  depends.  But  in  view  of  the  alleged  inability 
of  many  savage  races  to  think  higher  numbers  than  3  or  5,  attention  must 
generally  be  drawn  to  the  fact  that  the  inefficiency  of  a  tool  does  not  always 
imply  a  corresponding  inability  in  the  hand  using  it.  In  reply  to  the  constant 
repetition  of  the  statement  that  as  the  languages  of  these  races  contain  jio  numerals 
above  3,  the  people  cannot  count  beyond  3,  Bleek  has  very  properly  pointed 
out  that  this  conclusion  is  as  much  justified  as  would  be  the  conclusion  that,  as 
the  French  say  dix-sept  and  quatre-vingts,  they  cannot  count  beyond  10  or  20. 
Greek  had  a  word  for  10,000;  Hindustanee  has  words  for  100,000  ijac),  and 
10,000,000  {crore);  we  have  none.  The  Nubians,  who  can  only  count  to  20 
in  their  own  language,  employ  Arabic  words  for  higher  numbers  ;  at  thq  same 
time  calling  100  by  their  own  word,  imil.  Just  the  same  holds  good  in  colour- 
names,  the  deficiency  of  which  among  many  savage  races  and  many  peoples  of 
antiquity  was  unhesitatingly  ascribed  to  a  corresponding  deficiency  of  perception. 
Here  they  started  from  the  unproved  assumption  that  expression  corresponds 
exactly  to  perception — in  this  instance  that  the  number  of  colour-terms  corre- 
sponded to  that  of  the  various  degrees  of  colour  which  pass  through  the  retina  to 
be  reproduced  in  consciousness.  Erroneous  as  is  this  supposition,  it  is  no  less 
instructive  for  the  recognition  of  .the  true  nature  of  language,  to  observe  that  many 
races,  otherwise  uncultivated,  can  show  an  unusually  copious  list  of  colour-terms. 
Both  copiousness  and  deficiency  alike  spring  from  immaturity.  We  just  as  often  find 
the  same  name  used  to  denote  different  colours,  as  the  most  different  names  applied 
to  the  same  colour.  This  is  merely  the  copiousness  of  confusion,  and  no  token  of 
hio-h  development.  After  testing  a  native  of  Queensland,  Alfred  Kirchhoff  wrote  : 
"  It  is  asserted  that  the  Hottentots  have  thirty-two  words  to  express  colours  ;  if 
so,  they  are  exceeded  more  than  two-fold  by  these  Australians  of  Queensland,  a 
list  of  whose  colour-names  yielded  as  many  as  seventy."  A  light  is  thrown  on  the 
way  in  which  this  excessive  wealth  of  terms  arises  by  the  fact  that  the  greatest 
cattle-breeders  among  the  African  Negroes,  the  Hereros,  Dinkas  and  their  kin,  who 
are  passionately  devoted  to  that  occupation,  possess  the  greatest  conceivable  choice 
of  words  for  all  colours — brown,  dun,  white,  dapple,  and  so  on.  The  Herero  has 
no  scruple  about  using  the  same  word  to  denote  the  colour  of  the  meadows  and 
of  the  sky  ;  but  he  would  regard  it  as  a  sign  of  gross  mental  incapacity  if  any  one 
were  to  comprise  in  one  word  the  various  gradations  of  brown  in  diff"erent  cows. 
So  among  the  Samoyedes  there  are  eleven  or  twelve  designations  for  the  various 
greys  and  browns  of  reindeer.  The  nautical  vocabulary  of  Malays  and  Polynesians 
shows  similar  development ;  but  not  far  off  we  find  great  barrenness,  the  result  of 


35 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


J] 


indolence.  Nor  is  it  only  "  natural  "  races  who  are  content  with  one  word  for 
different  colours  ;  the  same  want  of  fertility  in  the  formation  of  language  holds 
good  in  higher  stages.  The  peasant  of  central  Germany  frequently  includes  violet 
under  brown,  and  the  Japanese  as  a  rule  calls  blue  and  green  indifferently  ao. 

r\  Requirements    decide  what  the  wealth  of  language  shall   be. 

y^Xj  l^O^    For  the  most  civilised  among  modern  European  nations  the  rule 
\  I  seems  to  hold  that  a  man  of  average  education  actually  uses  only 

Lj  a  very  small  part  of  the  words  which  his  language  contains.      The 

English  language  claims  to  possess  100,000  words,  yet  an  English 
field-labourer  gets  along  as  a  rule  with  about  300.  Where  races 
of  a  higher  civilization  come  in  contact  with  a  lower,  the  language 
of  the  latter  easily  lapses  into  impoverishment,  since  it  takes  over 
a  number  of  words  from  the  former.  But  then  its  impoverishment 
allows  no  conclusion  as  to  the  degree  of  civilization,  but  can  only 
b2  looked  upon  as  a  historical  fact  in  the  life  of  that  language. 
A  good  example  is  the  freedom  with  which  Nubian  has  been  sup- 
plemented by  Arabic.  The  Nubians  have  their  own  special  words 
for  sun,  moon,  and  stars  ;  but  the  indications  of  time,  year,  month, 
day,  hour,  they  borrow  from  the  Arabs.  With  them  essi  serves 
for  water,  sea,  river  ;   but  the  Nile  is  called  Tosst.      For  all  native 

..^ animals,  domestic  or  wild,  they  have  names  of  their  own  ;   Arabic 

^  j  for  all  relating  to  building  and  navigation.  Spirit,  God,  slave,  the 
Vj  ideas  of  relationship,  the  parts  of  the  body,  weapons,  the  fruits  of 
the  earth,  and  everything  connected  with  breadmaking,  have  Nubian 
names  ;  on  the  other  hand  servant,  friend,  enemy,  temple,  to  pray, 
to  believe,  to  read,  are  Arabic.  All  metals  have  Arabic  names, 
except  iron.      "  They  are  rich  in  Berber,  poor  in  Arabic." 

How  much  the  very  mixture  of  tongues  does  to  enrich  a 
language,  and  above  all  to  adapt  it  to  its  purpose,  is  shown  among 
European  languages  by  English,  which  includes  just  about  as  many 
words  of  Teutonic  as  of  Romanic  origin.      Many  of  the  despised 

.       .     foreign   words   are    really  in- 

X 


r 
r 


n 


\y 


^   N^    Y 


X 


^  G   ^ 


dispensable.  We  need  only 
think  of  the  planting  and 
engrafting  that  has  had  to  be 
undertaken  in  the  garden  of 
every  African,  Polynesian, 
_,,.,..,  ,  ,  and  American  tongue  in  order 

Owner  s  marks  :  the  upright  column  from  the  Ainu  (after  Von  Siebold) ;  ,         .  -ui       r  i. 

the  others,  rudimentary  writing  from  the  Negroes  of  Lunda  (after    ^^    make    it     poSSlble    for    the 

M.  Buchner).  missionaries  to  interpret  the 

simplest  facts  of  Scripture  history  and  the  writings  which  form  the  foundation 
of  Christianity.  In  every  mission  the  rendering  of  "  God  "  especially  has  a  history 
rich  in  difficulties  and  errors. 

Glancing  at  the  heavy  burden  laid  upon  those  who  are  naturally  without  speech, 
we  will  only  call  to  mind  the  interesting  fact  that  in  Kazembe's  kingdom  Living- 
stone met  with  a  deaf  and  dumb  man,  who  used  just  the  same  signs  as  un- 
educated persons  of  his  kind  in  Europe.  It  is  obvious  that  the  language  of  signs 
and  grimaces  is  all  the  more  tempting  to  use  in  proportion  as  language  proper  is 


LANGUAGE  37 


defective  and  simple,  and  the  less  varied  and  abstract  the  ideas  to  which  it  can 
lend  expression.  By  frequent  use  this  kind  of  language  can  be  brought  to  a 
perfection  of  which  we,  who  always  have  thousands  of  words  at  command,  can 
form  no  conception.  Races  deficient  in  culture  can  put  far  more  into  the  simplest 
winks  and  gestures  than  we  are  in  the  habit  of  doing.  Livingstone  tells  us  that 
when  Africans  beckon  to  any  one  they  hold  the  palm  of  the  hand  downwards,  as 
though  to  combine  the  idea  of  laying  it  on  the  person  and  drawing  him  towards 
them.  If  the  person  wanted  is  close  by,  the  beckoner  reaches  out  his  right  hand 
in  a  line  with  the  breast,  and  makes  a  movement  as  if  he  wanted  to  catch  the 
other  by  closing  his  fingers  and  drawing  him  towards  himself;  if  the  other  is 
farther  off,  the  movement  is  emphasised  by  holding  the  hand  as  high  as  possible 
and  then  bringing  it  downwards  and  rubbing  it  on  the  ground.  But  gesture 
language  has  not  been  developed  to  a  real  system  of  signals  among  the  Africans, 
who  for  that  purpose  use  the  drum  language  (drum  signalling,  it  may  be  said, 
extends  from  the  Cameroons  through  Central  Africa  to  New  Guinea,  thence  to  the 
Jivaros  in  South  America).  Its  highest  cultivation  seems  to  be  reserved  for 
the  inventive,  and  at  the  same  time  taciturn,  Indians  of  North  America.  Mallery, 
in  his  great  work  on  the  sign  and  gesture  language  of  the  Indians,  has  given  a  list 
of  principal  signs,  by  combining  which  the  most  various  sentences  can  be  formed. 
Here  belong  also  fire  and  smoke  signals  ;  the  whistling  language  of  Gomera,  in 
which  shepherds  converse  over  great  distances,  make  appointments,  and  so  forth  ; 
and  the  like.  Lichtenstein  gives  a  pretty  instance  of  the  expression  of  numerical 
conceptions  by  means  of  signs.  He  relates  that  a  Hottentot,  who  was  disputing 
with  his  Dutch  master  about  the  length  of  time  that  he  had  yet  to  serve,  contrived 
to  explain  the  difference  of  their  respective  views  to  the  magistrate.      "  My  Baas," 

he  said,  "  will   have  it  I   have  got  so  long  to  serve "      Here  he  stretched  out 

his  left  arm  and   hand,  and  laid  the  little  finger  of  the  right  hand  on  the  middle 

of  his  forearm  ;  "  but   I   say  that  I  have  only  got  so  long "      And  therewith 

he  moved  his  finger  to  the  wrist.  American  Indians  often  carry  a  complete 
measure  with  various  subdivisions  tattooed  on  one  arm  ;  this  brings  us  to  the 
rudiments  of  writing. 

Among  all  races  of  the  earth  we  find  simple  methods  of  fixing  a  conception, 
which  present  themselves  either  in  picture-writing  or  in  sign -writing  as  allied 
inventions.  Yet  both  are  familiar  to  the  youth  of  all  races  in  later  times.  Our 
boys  use  a  form  of  picture-writing  when  they  draw  an  unpopular  schoolfellow  on 
the  door  of  his  house  with  a  donkey's  head.  But  adults  who  possess  no  higher 
form  of  writing  are  able,  by  means  of  pictures  placed  in  a  row,  to  express  a  good 
deal  more  than  isolated  notions.  As  soon  as  by  mutual  consent  a  conventional 
character  has  been  stamped  on  these  representations,  making  them  intelligible  to 
wide  circles,  they  attain  the  stage  of  picture-writing.  Signs  can  only  serve  a 
purpose  defined  by  mutual  agreement,  as,  for  instance,  marks  of  ownership  simply 
express  the  fact  that  the  article  upon  which  they  are  painted  or  cut  has  such  and 
such  a  definite  man  for  its  owner.  Many  signs  which  are  hardly  recognisable 
under  the  ornamental  character  which  they  often  assume,  and  which  brings  them 
nearer  to  art,  may  have  sprung  from  ownership  marks  of  this  kind,  or  be  directed 
to  make  a  notion  plainer,  as  when  the  road  is  indicated  by  a  foot  going  or  a  hand 
pointing  in  a  certain  direction.  But  then  they  have  already  reached  the  boundary 
at  which  their  arrangement  in  succession  brings  us  to  a  higher  stage  of  develop- 


38  THE   HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


ment.  The  "  Wabino  song  of  the  Ojibbeway  Indians,"  represented  on  our  coloured 
plate  entitled  "  Indian  picture-writing,"  gives  an  illustration  of  the  way  in  which 
not  only  one  idea  but  a  whole  series  of  statements  can  be  expressed  by  simple 
means  to  which  a  definite  sense  is  attached  ;  all  the  higher  kinds  of  writing 
have  sprung  from  picture-writing.  >  This  descent  is  recognisable  in  the  Mexican 
and  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  but  is  obliterated  in  the  Chinese ;  but  traces  may 
still  be  noticed  everywhere  ;  even  in  the  cuneiform  writing  we  may  find  echoes  of 
the  picture-writing  from  which  it  sprang.  In  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics  an  ox 
or  a  star  indicate  the  things  themselves,  but  besides  this,  even  in  the  very  oldest 
inscriptions  going  back  to  B.C.  3000,  they  also  denote  certain  definite  sounds. 
In  the  Mexican  picture-writing  signs  of  things  and  signs  of  sounds  were  similarly 
blended.  A  monosyllabic  language  like  Chinese,  which  denotes  different  words  by 
means  of  one  and  the  same  syllable,  makes  use  of  signs  of  things  which  indeed  are  now 
hardly  recognisable  in  order  to  define  phonetic  signs  for  syllables.  The  Japanese, 
on  the  other  hand,  for  the  purposes  of  their  language,  which,  being  polysyllabic, 
is  more  adapted  to  phonetic  writing,  arranged  a  really  phonetic  script  out  of  the 
Chinese  letters.  In  a  more  decided  fashion  the  Phoenicians  did  the  same  when  they 
dropped  the  superfluous  signs  used  by  the  Egyptians  to  denote  things,  and  only 
adopted  such  hieroglyphs  as  were  most  necessary  for  writing  down  the  sounds. 
The  Phcenician  names  for  the  letters  made  their  way  into  Greece,  and  passed  into 
all  western  "  alphabets."  Thus,  from  obviously  manifold  beginnings  of  picture- 
writing,  grew  up,  in  one  spot  of  the  earth  only,  one  of  the  finest  implements  of 
human  thought — the  art  of  writing  by  means  of  letters  of  the  highest  pliancy, 
adapted  to  all  languages,  and  in  its  development  into  telegraphy  and  shorthand 
attaining  the  highest  possibilities  of  compressed  expression  of  thought.  Therewith 
mankind  achieved  an  extraordinarily  important  step  in  the  progress  of  its  develop- 
ment, for  in  fixing  and  securing  tradition,  writing  fixed  and  secured  civilization 
itself,  in  the  essence  of  which  we  have  found  the  connection  of  generations  based 
upon  tradition  to  be  the  living,  we  may  say  the  inspiring  nucleus. 


§  6.   RELIGION 

Difficulty  of  the  subject — Have  "natural"  races  religion? — Are  their  ideas  survivals  from  a  higher  sphere  of 
thought,  or  germs  to  be  developed  later  ? — Hawaiian  Hades-legend — .The  origin  of  all  religion  lies  in  the 
search  for  causes — Phenomena  which  stimulate  this  search  :  great  natural  phenomena — Superstitions  con- 
nected with  animals — Sickness,  dreams,  death,  have  an  even  more  powerful  effect  than  natural  phenomena 
— Ascription  of  souls  to  all  objects — Fetishes — Idols — Temples — Modes  of  burial — The  idea  of  a  future 
life — Morality  in  religion — Classification  and  propagation  of  religions — Missionary  activity. 

The  inquiry  into  the  religious  life  and  thought  of  natural  races  is  difficult. 
They  give  information  about  their  conception  of  the  Supreme  Being  only  with 
reluctance,  often  incompletely,  or  with  the  intention  of  deceiving.  Very  often  it 
may  really  not  be  easy  to  them  to  give  such  information,  for  the  reason  that  they 
have  no  clear  ideas  on  the  subject.  When  Merensky  asked  some  Christian  Basutos' 
what  they  had  thought  about  God  while  they  were  still  heathens,  they  said  :  "  We 
did  not  think  about  God  at  all,  we  only  dreamt."  Religious  ideas  as  clear  and 
simple  as  monotheism  are  not  found  among  savages.      Not  only  does  the  entire 


RELIGION 


39 


thought-life  of  these  people  move  in  pictures  of  dreamy  indefiniteness,  in  many 
cases  without  sequence  or  connection  ;  they  lack  the  secure  progress  and  develop- 
ment of  thought  from  one  generation  to  another  which  brings  about  the  organic 
growth  of  the  thought  of  a  former  age  into  that  of  the  present.  Such  religious 
ideas  as  do  exist  are  often  known  only  to  a  few  elders  who  guard  them  jealously. 
Even  where  this  does  not  occur,  the  dislike  to  giving  away  the  secrets  of  religion 
often  makes  it  possible  to  get  at  most  a  mutilated  fragment. 

We  must  therefore  be  on  our  guard  against  too  narrow  a  notion  of  the 
religious  surmises  and  imaginings  of  "  natural "  races.  In  one  respect  they  are 
always  comprehensive.  All  mental  stirrings  and  strivings  which  are  not  directed 
to  the  immediate  practical 
aims  of  life  find  in  them 
their  expression.  Reli- 
gion is  at  once  philosophy, 
science,  historic  tradition, 
poetry.  Cranz  says  of  the 
Greenland  angekoks''  They 
may  be  called  the  Green- 
landers'  physical  -  science 
teachers,  philosophers,  doc- 
tors, and  moralists,  as  well 
as  soothsayers  I"  In  reli- 
gion there  is  under  all 
circumstances  much  room 
for  conjecture  and  inquiry. 
But  we  must  not  start  with 
the  view  that  everything 
wTiich  exists  deep  down 
must  equally  show  itself 
on  the  surface.  The  most  unfair  judgments,  full  of  intrinsic  contradictions, 
arise  from  this  prejudice.  How  shallow  is  the  view  of  Klemm  that  among  the 
Arctic  races  every  one  believes  as  he  likes  !  "  No  common  religion  exists  1 " 
Klemm  has  quite  misunderstood  a  remark  of  Cranz.  One  who  knew  the 
Namaqua  Hottentots  well,  Tindall  the  missionary,  has  also  made  the  statement 
that  "  in  regard  to  religion  their  minds  seem  to  have  been  almost  a  tabula  rasa'.' 
This  has  no  doubt  been  understood  to  mean  that  they  had  scarcely  any  inkling 
of  religious  matters.  Certainly  in  the  soul  of  a  Namaqua  there  is  no  intelligible 
writing  to  be  read,  clearly  proclaiming  any  religious  message  ;  but  survivals  of  an 
intelligible  writing,  in  many  places  obliterated,  are  not  lacking.  And  so  indeed 
Tindall  presently  qualifies  his  own  statement  by  saying  that  the  fact  of  their 
language  containing  appellations  for  God,  spirits,  the  evil  one,  seems  to  indicate 
that  they  were  not  wholly  ignorant  of  these  matters  ;  even  though  nothing  further 
appears  in  the  terms  of  the  language  or  in  ceremonial  usages  and  superstitions  to 
give  evidence  of  anything  more  than  a  crude  conception  of  a  spiritual  world. 
He  believes  that  the  superstitious  tales  which  travellers  have  picked  up  from  them 
and  narrated  as  religious  reminiscences,  were  regarded  by  the  natives  themselves 
as  mere  fables,  related  only  with  a  view  to  entertain,  or  in  order  to  give  some 
insight  into  the  habits  and   peculiarities  of  wild  beasts.      This   expresses   far  too 


Melanesian  sea  deity,  from  San  Christoval.     (After  Codrington. ) 


40  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

narrow  an  apprehension  of  the  idea  of  religion  ;  if  these  usages  and  tales  are  not 
religion,  at  least  they  are  of  the  elements  from  which,  as  civilization  progresses  to 
development,  the  crystal  of  a  purified  belief  is  built  up.  When  we  find  ourselves 
in  the  course  of  our  description  in  presence  of  the  question  :  Is  religion  to  be  seen 
in  usages,  views,  legends  ?  we  shall  put  the  counter-question  :  Is  religion  to  be 
apprehended  only  as  a  cut-and-dried  conception,  or  is  not  the  truer  and  fairer  way 
of  looking  at  it  to  hold  that  the  elements  of  religion  are  to  be  recognised  in  every 
department  of  human  thought  and  feeling  which  can  rise  above  the  affairs  of  daily 
life,  and  above  this  corporeal  existence,  into  the  realm  of  unknown  causes  ? 
Rarely,  no  doubt,  among  "  natural "  races  shall  we  meet  with  religion  in  that 
narrow  sense  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  we  shall  not  analyse  a  single  race  on  its 
spiritual  side  without  laying  bare  the  germs  and  root-fibres  of  religious  feeling. 
Nay,  we  shall  arrive  at  recognising  that  the  spiritual  side  of  a  race  nowhere  finds 
more  copious  utterance  than  in  religious  matters.  Beside  the  material  destitu- 
tion of  the  Bushmen,  are  not  their  myths_  suggestive  of  a  treasure  ?  From 
scientific  conviction  we  must  unhesitatingly  endorse  the  verdict  which  was 
pronounced  by  the  religious  feeling  of  V.  von  Strauss  in  opposition  to  this  tendency 
to  degrade  :  "  Complete  absence  of  religion,  true  atheism,  may  be  the  result  of  an 
undermining,  soul-deadening  over-culture  ;  but  never  the  effect  of  crude  barbarism. 
This,  in  its  deepest  degradation,  always  retains  the  craving  for  religion,  with  a 
corresponding  faculty  for  religion,  however  faultily  and  confusedly  this  may 
operate." 

Ethnography  knows  no  race  devoid  of  religion,  but  only  differences  in  the 
degree  to  which  religious  ideas  are  developed.  Among  some,  these  lie  small  and 
inconspicuous  as  in  the  germ,  or  rather  as  in  the  chrysalis  ;  while  among  others 
they  have  expanded  in  a  splendid  wealth  of  myths  and  legends.  But  we  must 
not  always  want  to  see  primitive  conditions  in  their  imperfections.  Let  us 
remember  how  in  Abyssinian  Christianity,  Mongolian  Buddhism,  Soudanese 
Mahommedanism,  great  religious  thoughts  have  dwindled  away  beyond  recogni- 
tion. The  propagative  force  of  religious  ideas  is  as  great  as  the  certainty  that 
they  will  dwindle  where  they  are  cast  forth  into  the  wilderness  of  the  materialistic 
savage  life,  isolated  and  cut  adrift  from  any  organic  connection  with  a  great  living 
mythology,  or  a  system  of  teaching  imbued  with  spirituality.  Already  we  find 
debased  fragments  of  Christian  or  Mussulman  ideas  in  Indian  and  Polynesian, 
Malay  and  African  myths ;  and  if  we  had  no  inkling  as  to  the  history 
of  their  introduction,  they  would  appear  as  evidences  of  an  underlying  germ 
of  monotheism.  The  poetry  of  "  natural "  races  again  in  any  case  arouses  a 
suspicion  that  some  twig  from  the  tree  of  European  story  and  fable  has  there 
dropped  into  the  soil,  and  with  the  power  of  reproduction  which  is  peculiar  to 
these  creations  of  fancy,  has  straightway  thrown  up  scions  in  foreign  ground. 
In  a  notice  of  Callaway's  Nursery  Tales  of  the  Zulus  (1866),  Max  Miiller  has 
connected  with  this  the  deeper  thought  that  like  our  folk-lore  stories  and  so  forth, 
at  least  so  far  as  they  deal  with  ghosts,  fairies,  and  giants,  these  point  to  a  remote 
civilization,  or  at  least  to  a  long-protracted  process  of  growth.  "  Like  the  anomalies 
of  language,  they  show  by  their  peculiar  character  that  there  was  an  epoch  when 
what  is  now  devoid  of  rule  or  sense  formed  itself  with  a  definite  object  and 
according  to  laws."  We  venture  even  to  predict  that  in  the  religion  of  the  most 
remote  African  and  Australian  peoples,  just  as  in  the  rest  of  the  culture  possessed 


RELIGION  41 

by  them,  will  be  found  germs  or  survivals  of  Indian  or  Egyptian  tradition.  The 
Indian  elements  in  the  Malay  religion  belong  now  to  the  domain  of  proved  facts, 
and  perhaps  reach  as  far  as  Hawaii  and  beyond,  even  to  America. 

The  profundity  of  the  thought  must  not  be  measured  by  the  imperfection  of 
the  expression.  In  considering  a  mythology  like  the  Polynesian,  it  must  not  be 
overlooked  that  this  multiform  weft  of  legend  is  often  less  like  clear  speech  than  like 
the  prattle  of  a  child,  and  that  one  has  more  often  to  attend  to  the  What  ?  than 
to  the  How  ?  Often  a  similarity  of  sound,  an  echo,  suffices  the  sportive  fancy  of 
these  people  as  an  attachment  for  far-reaching  threads.  The  same  aspect  of  a 
supra-sensual  relation  looks  far  more  impressive  on  the  parchment  of  some 
manuscript  of  a  Greek  poet  than  in  the  oral  tradition  of  a  Polynesian  or  African 
priest  or  sorcerer.  But  if  we  try  to  extract  the  more  intelligible  sentences  in  the 
prattle  of  the  savage  we  get  a  picture  which  is  in  its  essence  not  far  inferior  to 
the  more  adorned  poetical  expression.  Let  us  compare  a  Hawaiian  legend  of 
the  under-world  with  its  parallels  in  Greek  mythology.  A  certain  chief, 
inconsolable  for  the  loss  of  his  wife,  obtained  from  his  priest,  in  answer  to  his 
prayers,  the  company  of  the  chieftain's  god  as  his  guide  into  the  kingdom  of 
Milu.  They  journeyed  to  the  end  of  the  world,  where  they  found  a  tree  which  was 
split ;  on  this  they  slid  down  to  the  lower  regions.  The  god  hid  himself  behind 
a  rock,  and  after  smearing  the  chief  with  an  ill-smelling  oil,  sent  him  forward  by 
himself.  On  reaching  Milu's  palace,  he  found  the  court  filled  with  a  crowd  of 
spirits  (Akua),  who  were  so  engrossed  in  their  game  that  he  was  able  to  join  them 
unobserved.  When  they  did  notice  him  they  took  him  for  a  newly-arrived  soul, 
and  jeered  at  him  for  a  stinking  ghost  who  had  stayed  too  long  by  his  putrefying 
body.  After  all  kinds  of  games  had  been  played,  they  had  to  think  of  another, 
and  the  chief  suggested  that  they  should  all  pluck  out  their  eyes  and  throw  them 
together  in  a  heap.  No  sooner  said  than  done  ;  but  the  chief  took  care  to 
observe  which  way  Milu's  eyes  went.  He  caught  them  in  the  air  and  hid  them 
in  his  coco-nut  cup.  As  they  were  now  all  blind,  he  succeeded  in  escaping  to  the 
kingdom  of  Wakea,  where  Milu's  hosts  might  not  set  foot.  After  long  negotia- 
tions with  the  chief,  now  under  the  protection  of  Wakea,  Milu  got  his  eyes  back, 
on  condition  of  releasing  the  soul  of  the  chief's  wife.  It  returned  to  earth  and  was 
reunited  to  its  body. 

Religion  is  everywhere  connected  with  man's  craving  for  causality,  which  will 
ever  be  looking  out  for  the  cause  or  the  causer  of  everything  that  comes  to  pass. 
Thus  its  ^deepest  roots  come  i_nto_CLontact_  wiih  science,  and  are  profoundly, 
entwined  with  the  sense  _of  Nature.  Agathias  tells  us  that  the  Alemanni 
venerated  trees  and  streams,  hills  and  dales  ;  and  we  may  boldly  assume  for  all 
mankind  the  universal  "  animation "  which  lay  at  the  base  of  this  veneration. 
This  craving  is  very  suitably  met  by  the  tendency  to  vivify  or  even  incarnate  all 
the  higher  phenomena  of  Nature,  by  attributing  to  them  a  soul  which  guides  in 
the  first  place  their  own  motions  and  changes,  but  afterwards  also  their  relation 
to  their  surroundings  nearer  or  more  distant.  The  Dyaks  ascribe  a  soul  to 
plants  no  less  than  to  men  :  if  the  rice  rots,  its  soul  is  clean  gone  ;  but  it  can, 
when  strewn  on  a  body,  follow  the  human  soul  to  the  other  world,  and  there 
again  be  incorporated  and  serve  it  for  food.  A  false  application  of  the  law  of 
cause  and  effect  leads  to  the  assumption  that  there  are  relations  between  this  soul 
and  the  human  soul,  which  at  last  weave  around   this   latter  a  close   network   of 


42 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


causation.  The  story  of  the  Kosa  chief  has  often  been  told.  He  died  shortly 
after  causing  a  piece  to  be  broken  off  an  anchor  which  was  cast  up  on  shore,  and 
from  that  time  forward  the  anchor  was  treated  with  reverence.  So  a  thousand 
threads  are  knotted  together,  and  none  of  them  is  forgotten  ;  and  in  this  net  of 
tradition  the  simple  child  of  nature  flutters  like  a  fly  in  the  spider's  web,  and  ever 
entangles  himself  more  with  every  attempt  to  find  the  right  clue.  The  soul  is 
literally  caught.  A  cord  with  several  open  nooses  fastened  to  it  is  hidden  in  the 
leaves.  If  the  man  for  whom  it  is  meant  catches  sight  of  it,  he  fancies  his  soul 
is  caught  in  it,  and  frets  himself  to  death.  There  you  have  a  method  of  sending 
a  person   out   of  the  world   which   in    the   Banks    Islands   has    been    tested  by 


Fetish  in  Lunda  ;  purpose  unknown,  perhaps  to  avert  lightning.     (After  Buchner. )     Cf.  p.  48, 


experience.  Hence  the  terror  of  phantoms  due  to  his  own  power  of  imagination, 
which  is  one  of  the  distinctive  traits  of  the  savage,  and  has  more  influence  than 
it  should  over  his  doings.  When  Melanesians  are  asked,  says  Codrington,  who 
they  are,  they  answer  "  Men,"  in  order  to  let  it  be  known  that  they  are  not  ghosts 
or  spectres.  Of  night  the  savage  is  more  afraid  than  a  badly  brought-up  child. 
Felkin,  writing  from  the  Upper  Nile,  says  that  at  night  the  natives  will  never 
march,  for  fear  of  wild  beasts  and  the  evil  influence  of  the  moon.  At  the  same  time, 
for  full  half  the  year  they  feel  far  from  comfortable  in  the  daytime,  and  try  at  least 
in  some  measure  to  secure  themselves  under  the  constant  feeling  of  being 
threatened  by  invisible  powers,  by  extending  the  idea  of  unlucky  days,  common 
to  all  mankind,  to  the  point  of  absurdity.  Monday,  Thursday,  and  Saturday  are 
good  days  for  travelling  in  these  parts  ;  Wednesday  is  neither  specially  good  nor 
bad  ;  but  Sunday,  Tuesday,  and  Friday  are  unlucky  days.  In  Java,  have  not  even 
the  thieves  their  silver  dial,  like  a  watch,  showing,  after  the  fashion  of  a  calendar, 


RELIGION 


43 


the  best  time  for  burglaries  or  robberies,  to  assist  them  in  their  choice  of  lucky- 
days  ?  White  men,  like  everything  new  and  unusual,  have  almost  inevitably  been 
mixed  up  with  these  superstitions.  Many  a  sad  episode  in  the  history  of  the  explora- 
tion of  the  dark  continent  is  explained  by  this  connection,  which  is  natural  enough 
in  the  negro's  spectre-teeming  brain.  Livingstone,  in  his  Missionary  Travels, 
forcibly  depicts  the  terror  which  he,  as  the  first  white  man,  inspired  in  the  negroes  ; 
he,  the  best  friend  they  ever  had  among  the  whites :  "  The  women  peer  from 
behind  the  walls  till  I  come  near,  and  then  hastily  dash  into  the  house.  When  a  little 
child,  unconscious  of  danger,  meets  me  in  the  street,  he  screams."     No  less  are  the 


Entrance  to  a  fetish  hut  in  Lunda.     (After  Buchner. )     Cf.  p,  45, 

things  owned  or  used  by  the  white  man  instantly  raised  into  the  sphere  of  the 
miraculous,  the  fetishic.  Paper  with  writing  on  it  especially  is  a  fetish  for  the 
West  Africans,  who  regard  it  as  sheer  witchcraft.  Buchholz  was  bandaging  a 
severe  wound  for  a  man  when  a  scrap  of  paper  fell  unnoticed  from  his  pocket. 
On  his  next  visit  to  his  patient  he  found  him  flitted,  because  the  house  was 
bewitched.  The  bit  of  paper  was  restored  him  with  the  utmost  solemnity.  On 
the  occasion  of  the  funeral  of  a  Bakwiri  woman  he  was  urgently  entreated  in  a 
special  speech  by  an  envoy  from  the  negroes,  kindly  not  to  throw  bits  of  paper 
about  in  his  walks,  as  otherwise  they  would  have  to  avoid  those  roads  and  spots. 
When  Chapman  visited  Lechulatebe's  town  on  Lake  Ngami,  the  mortality  from 
fever  was  very  high.  The  chief  was  in  great  alarm  and  excitement  about  "  the 
death  that  was  roaming  all  around."  He  scarcely  showed  himself  outside  his  hut, 
made  his  wives  and  children  undergo  frequent  ablutions,  and  kept  his  doctors 
constantly  at  work  by  having  his  threshold  incessantly  sprinkled  with  decoctions 
of  herbs.  The  relations  of  those  who  had  died  were  subjected  to  tedious  processes 
of  purification  before  they  were  allowed  to  rejoin  the  community. 


44 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Thus  an  animating  breath  blows  not  through  Nature  only,  but  all  things  ; 
and  there  is  in  all  dealings,  even  in  the  decoration  of  men  and  the  ornament  of 
things,  much  more  spiritual  value  and  purpose  than  we  fancy.  Therefore  the  word 
polytheism  applies  to  all  religions  of  the  lower  grades.  A  tendency  to  multiply 
conceptions  shows  itself  throughout ;  in  the  course  of  time  the  process  of  god- 
making  has  become  pleasant  and  easy  to  the 
troubled  spirit  to  which  all  this  is  due.  Where 
the  mass  of  the  chiefs  were  looked  upon  with 
awe  as  demi  or  entire  gods  ;  where  souls  did  not 
only  survive,  but  remained  in  intimate  contact 
with  this  world  ;  where  every  family  possessed 
its  own  tutelary  spirit  in  the  shape  of  a  beast 
or  something  else,  gods  and  idols  must  have 
sprouted  and  flourished  and  entangled  the  whole 
mind  in  a  thicket  of  fantastic  fictions.  We  do 
not  wish  to  see  therein  only  the  base  creations 
of  terror.  In  the  act  of  animating  is  something 
beautifying,  such  as  on  their  higher  levels  poetry 
and  philosophy  strive  after. 

Where  lie  the  sources  whence  ghosts  and 
spectres  rise  incessantly  in  their  millions  ?  The 
most  striking  change  in  a  man  himself  or  his 
closest  associations  is  wrought  by  sickness,  sleep, 
and  death.  It  is  not  the  fear  of  Nature  which 
meets  us  as  the  first  basis  of  superstition,  but 
that  of  death  and  the  dead.  The  business  of 
Shamans,  medicine-men,  Koraji,  and  whatever 
else  these  wizards  are  called,  is  everywhere  in 
the  first  place  to  seek  out  the  causes  of  death 
and  sickness,  and  then  to  communicate  with  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  ;  who  are  regarded  by  their 
relatives  with  deep  aversion,  often  with  fear  and 
pain. 

Directly  from  this  springs  fetishism,  setting 
up  in  all  manner  of  complicated  ways  relations 
between  the  countless  tribe  of  souls  and  all  pos- 
sible articles  in  which  these  take  up  their  abode. 
Here  it  is  clearly  seen  that  no  straight  road  from 
objects  of  external  nature  to  the  soul  of  man  is 
offered  by  the  fundamental  lines  of  primitive  religious  systems — for  we  shall  seek 
in  vain  for  any  direct  relations  between  their  teaching  and  the  measure  of  extent 
and  activity  which  the  fetish-system  has  reached, — but  rather  that  the  fancy, 
timidly  searching  around  in  the  whimsical  way  in  which  the  emotions  of  alarm  are 
apt  to  express  themselves  ;  for  any  support  that  may  be  at  hand  attaches  itself  to 
objects  often  in  the  highest  degree  unworthy  of  its  confidence.  But  interrupted 
experiments,  so  to  say,  are  tried  with  regard  to  supernatural  agencies.  Not  only 
is  search  made  after  new  spirits,  as  when  curiously-shaped  stones  are  laid  by  a  tree 
to  try  if  they  will  improve  its  bearing ;  but  old  acquaintances  are  tested,  as  for 


e^^^=^-^^^^ 


Wooden  idol  from  the  Niger  (Museum 
of  the  Church  Missionary  Society). 


RELIGION 


45 


instance,  by  giving  them  bad  or  putrid  meat.      Why  have  all  the  African  negroes 
such  a  predilection  for  horns,  hanging  them  in  quantities  on  the  persons  of  their 
magic-men,  while  the  high  priests,  who  are  the  kings,  keep  their  dreaded  medicines 
in  them  ?     Whence  comes  the  almost  comic  veneration  for  pots,  displayed  by 
Dyaks  and  Alfurs  ?      Anything  striking  finds  a  place  in  the  wilderness  of  curi- 
osities which  hang  about  the  neck  and  waist  of  a  Kaffir  magician  ;  indeed  it  was 
in  the  leather  pouch  hung  round  the  neck  of  such  a  person  that  the  first  great 
find   of   diamonds   at   the   Cape,   by   an   extraordinary   coincidence,   was    made. 
Stone-worship   is   widely    spread,  but  as  a  rule  is  connected  with   large  upright 
pieces  of  rock  ;  though  in  Africa  any  stone  may  become  a  fetish,  and  be  decorated 
with  rags  of  many  colours  wound 
round  its  neck.     Among  the  Mus- 
gus,  long  poles  serve  for  idols ;  the 
Azandeh  prefer   shapeless  blocks 
stuck    with    nails,    while    in    the 
Cameroons    pillars   of    basalt    are 
used.      It  would   be  hard   to  find 
an   African  who  has  not  a  fetish 
hung    on    him,    and    since    many 
wishes,   actions,  and   so  on,  have 
their  special  fetishes,  many  a  man 
is   heavily  laden  with  these  salu- 
tary objects.      There  are  amulets 
too,  which  taste  the  water  before 
you   drink,   and   give   warning    of 
anything  noxious  therein  ;  for  evil 
spirits  are  partial  to  this  flickering, 
foaming,  ever-changing  fluid.    An 
Eskimo's   weapon    bears    a    little 
tutelary  god  on  the  band.      This 
is    only    one    stage    from  the  so- 
called  idols,  figures  of  dead  persons,  which  are  cut  in  wood   or  cast  in  metal,  or 
moulded   in  the  huts    out    of    clay,    and    set    up    about    the    graves.      Both    are 
animated  ;    only  the  soul   of  the  ancestral  image  is   a  definite  one,  which  used 
to   possess  a  well-known   body,  and  now  has  passed  into  this  doll,  and   often   for 
years  to  come  takes  its  accustomed  place  ;  as  in  the  case  of  the   Shaman  of  the 
Goldi,  who  stands  in  his  old  place   in    the  yaourt  until    he   is   broken    up   with 
memorial   services.       With  the  making  of  such   visible    images    of  souls    comes 
also  the   founding   of  special    places    for  venerating   them,    in   the   form    of  the 
African   fetish  huts,  the  tabooed  places   of  Malays   and   Polynesians,  and   so  on 
up  to  the  temple.      As  these  are  frequently  contiguous  to   the  places  of  burial, 
the  abodes  of  the  souls  of  the  departed,  they  often  look  much  like  our  church- 
yards, which  are  laid   out  round  the  churches  without  any  consciousness  of  the 
close  connection  which  prevails  between  care  for  the  souls  of  the  dead  and  the 
worship  of  God.      The  only  difference  is  that  the  primitive  temple  more  often 
grew   out   of  the   churchyard  than   the   churchyard   was   appended    to    it.      The 
Shaman  of  northern  Asia  surrounds  himself  with  a  whole  series  of  wooden  idols, 
with  whom  he  converses  during  his  conjurations,  and  from  whom  he  gets  advice. 


A  mummy  wrapped  in  clothing,  from  Ancon. 
and  Stubel. ) 


(After  Reiss 


46 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Figures  of  animals,  especially  bears,  come  in,  and  his 
yaourt  is  a  very  home  of  souls.  It  must  remain  un- 
decided whether  we  have  a  higher  stage  in  the  fetish-huts 
where  there  are  no  images  or  other  embodiments.  In 
Africa  we  find  them  as  genuine  huts,  in  Oceania  as  little 
shrines. 

Funeral  ceremonies  are  a  department  of  religion 
among  all  races.  The  thought  underlying  them  all  is 
that  the  soul  does  not  leave  the  body  immediately,  or  at 
least  maintains  a  certain  alliance  with  it.  The  Poly- 
nesians state  clearly  that  the  soul  after  death  haunts  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  grave  for  a  while,  until  it  finally 
descends  to  the  realms  of  Milu  or  Wakea.  Among 
Malays  and  Indians  of  north-east  America  this  action  is 
equally  clear,  and  among  the  races  of  east  Asia  we  find 
a  glimmering  of  it.  For  this  reason  the  corpse  is  often 
left  for  some  time  unburied— a  whole  year  among  the 
Chiriquis.  The  widely -spread  custom  of  burying  gifts 
with  the  dead,  and  the  mummy-like  arrangement  of  the 
corpse ;  the  marking  of  the  grave,  which  among  the 
Bongos  assumes  the  character  of  a  monumental  edifice ; 
the  founding  and  maintaining  of  regular  mausoleums  in 
the  caise  of  chiefs  show  how  little  the  inanimate  body  is 
regarded  as  a  mere  thing.  Among  many  races  provision 
is    made   for    the    temporary  return  of   the    soul   to  its 


Idols  from  Hermit  Island. 
(Ethnological  Museum,  Berlin.) 


Supposed  idols  representing  souls,  from  Ubudjwa.     (After  Cameron.) 


RELIGION  47 

decayed  tabernacle,  and  to  this  end  an  opening  is  left  in  the  vault,  and  from  time 
to  time  meat  and  drink  are  put  by  the  corpse  or  poured  into  the  grave.  The 
soul  in  its  wanderings  may  travel  to  any  other  persons,  bewitch  them,  ruin  them, 
or  raise  them  to  unexpected  honour.  In  Uganda  every  sorcerer  is  tenanted  by 
the  soul  of  a  king  ;  but  the  ordinary  soul,  Musimu,  can  enter  into  any  one.  That 
the  soul  does  not  rest  when  it  has  reached  the  grave  is  indicated  by  the  boat 
which  is  set  up  on  the  mound.  In  the  North  the  sledge  on  which  the  corpse 
was  drawn  to  its  last  home  is  used  in  the  same  way.  From  this  boat  is  derived 
the  shape  of  the  stone  slab  used  by  North  Germans.  The  forcible  recall  of  the 
soul  into  the  corpse  by  means  of  witchcraft  was  regarded  as  no  less  possible  than 
its  extraction  by  the  same  means  from  the  living  body,  and  transference  to  that 
of  some  beast ;  this  last  is  a  speciality  much  in  favour  with  African  magicians. 
But  with  the  assumption  of  universal  animation,  the  fancy  need  see  no  bar  to 
any  transmigrations  on  the  part  of  the  soul,  though  beasts  naturally  occur  first. 

With  the  grounds  for  reverent  treatment  of  the  corpse  fear  is  associated  as  a 
powerful  motive.  The  rapid  swathing,  the  carrying  on  a  pole,  the  avoidance  of 
the  door,  the  hasty  interment  at  a  distance  from  the  hut,  are  all  operations  if  not 
prompted  by  fear,  at  any  rate  imbued  with  it.  Curiously  enough  in  this  respect 
the  strongest  contradictions  occur  ;  for  while  the  Kaffirs  often  simply  drag  their 
dead  into  the  forest  and  leave  them  to  the  hyaenas,  they  bury  others  in  stone 
graves,  or  on  their  own  premises.  In  the  Cameroons  a  man  is  buried  in  his  hut, 
a  woman  by  the  roadside.  If  the  hut  of  the  deceased  is  deserted  or  destroyed 
his  household  furniture  is  broken  up,  his  slaves  and  flocks  often  put  to  death,  and 
his  very  name  devoted  to  oblivion,  so  effective  is  the  dread  of  spectres. 

The  brief  and  fragmentary  thought  of  savage  races  allows  of  a  profound 
belief,  expressing  itself  in  as  many  forms  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  animation  of 
the  human  body,  without  a  perception  in  all  cases  of  the  consequent  necessity  of 
accounting  for  the  place  in  which  the  souls  abide.  Still  that  belief  doubtless 
renders  their  acceptance  of  the  idea  of  a  future  state  more  i-eady  ;  and  if  this 
shows  a  remarkable  similarity  among  ancient  Europeans,  Polynesians,  and 
American  Indians,  we  may  look  upon  this  as  a  fact  of  geographical  distribution, 
remarkable  rather  in  its  relation  to  the  geography  of  mankind  than  to  the 
psychology  of  races.  The  myth  already  given  of  the  soul-snatching  Hawaiian 
chief  shows  clearly  how  far  the  resemblances  go.  In  the  fundamental  features  of 
a  descent,  a  trick  practised  on  the  lord  of  the  nether  world,  the  jealousy  of  the 
remaining  souls,  we  find  agreement  among  many  races.  Conceptions  which,  as 
immediately  reflected  images  of  the  reality,  involve  a  certain  element  of  necessity, 
stand  in  a  different  relation  to  each  other  from  ideas  which  are  attached  to  them 
only  in  the  second  or  some  more  distant  degree.  These  latter  must  always  be 
tested  with  especial  thoroughness  in  respect  of  their  origin  in  higher  and  more 
remote  spheres  of  thought. 

What  is  called  an  idol  is  originally  nothing  but  a  memorial  of  a  deceased 
person — an  ancestral  statue.  It  is  more  rare  to  find  the  soul  embodied  in  a 
symbol,  as  when,  at  a  memorial  service  for  the  dead  among  the  Goldi,  a  wooden  bird 
bearing  the  soul  away  is  swung  over  the  head  of  the  Shaman.  Usually  the  man 
is  given  as  he  was,  often  highly  conventionalised.  The  connection  between  these 
images  and  what  is  commonly  called  idolatry,  naturally  depending  on  the  affection 
bestowed  upon  the  dead,  is  never  more  than  a  part  of  religion.     This  explains 


48 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


the  otherwise  inexplicable  variety  which  in  this  matter  prevails  among  close- 
allied  tribes,  as  for  instance  in  New  Guinea,  where  the  Nufurese  have  a  long  list 
of  idols  ikaroivar),  while  there  are  none  whatever  among  the  Arfaks.  Now  we 
can  understand  also  the  intimate  connection  between  skull  and  idol  worship,  for 
the  skull  is  a»  memorial  of  the  dead.  The  farther  the  idea  of  memory  retreats, 
the  more  impersonal  is  the  image.  In  Tahiti,  where  the  personal  family  idols,  or 
tii,  are  distinguished  from  the  national  idols,  tu,  it  is  chiefly  the  latter  who  are 
rendered  invisible  by  wrappings.  The  theft  of  them  often  gives  rise  to  wars 
between  tribes. 

Besides  death  we  find  life,  with  generation  and  birth  as  its  more  enigmatic 
and  significant  processes,  woven  into  relations  with  the  supernatural.  The  moment 
of  generation   is    by  predilection    represented   in   carvings   and   images,  and  very 

commonly  that  of  birth  also.  In  the  case 
of  this  the  presentation  of  the  feet  signifies 
a  special  relation  to  the  myths.  There  lies 
an  affirmation  in  the  new  life  which  is 
opposed  to  the  power  of  destruction.  The 
phallus  as  a  symbol  of  protection  against 
evil  powers  is  in  use  among  the  most 
various  races ;  and  therefore  we  do  not 
think  it  necessary,  with  Schmeltz,  to  bring 
the  appearance  of  phallic  emblems  among 
the  Maoris  into  relation  with  the  obscure 
question  of  the  composition  of  the  race,  on 
the  ground  of  the  special  prominence  of 
the  same  among  the  Melanesians.  Any- 
how it  is  the  case  that  among  most  dif- 
ferent races,  birth,  the  attainment  of 
maturity  (this  very  particularly),  and  mar- 
riage, are  surrounded  by  ceremonies  intended  to  render  in  a  perceptible  form  the 
importance  of  these  events.  To  the  notion  of  a  future  life  there  has  now  accrued, 
in  a  higher  stage  of  development,  a  more  advanced  and  higher  element  in  the 
shape  of  a  doctrine  of  future  rewards  and  punishments.  Of  this,  however,  many 
races  show  no  trace.  The  "  natural  "  races,  no  doubt,  imagine  divisions '  in  the 
future  life,  but  these  are  social,  not  moral.  Thus  the  Polynesians  distinguish  the 
realms  of  Milu  and  Wakea.  The  former  is  the  rowdy  place  where  lower-class 
souls  dwell,  and  amuse  themselves  with  games  and  shouting  ;  in  the  latter,  on 
the  contrary,  quiet  and  dignity  prevail,  suited  to  the  chiefs  of  whose  souls  it  is 
the  abode.  Walhalla  is  only  for  brave  warriors  who  have  fallen  in  fight ;  and  so, 
too,  the  Indian  warrior  has  his  select  heaven.  It  is  essential  to  point  out  that 
ethics  do  not  necessarily  form  a  primitive  ingredient  of  religion,  but  are  an 
admixture  occurring  first  in  the  higher  stages. 

Two  classes  of  natural  phenomena  exercise  the  most  profound  effect  upon  the 
innate  sense  of  insecurity  ;  and  man  must  find  out  how  he  stands  with  regard  to 
them.  In  presence  of  the  mighty  activity  of  natural  forces  he  compares  himself 
with  the  power  and  majesty  of  nature  and  acquires  the  consciousness  of  his  own 
inferiority.  On  all  sides  innumerable  obstacles  offer  barriers  and  hinder  his  will. 
His  spirit  trembles  before  the  infinite  and  unfathomable,  and  hardly  troubles  itself 


Grave  of  a  Zulu  chief.     (After  G.  Fritsch. ' 


RELIGION  49 


further  about  the  particulars  of  which  that  exahed  grandeur  consists.  Legends  are 
sure  to  be  woven  about  a  mountain  in  the  plain  ;  the  dark  forest  harbours  ghosts  ; 
storms,  earthquake,  volcanic  eruptions,  impress  by  the  unexpected  and  stunning 
manner  of  their  outbreak.  The  fantastic  idols  with  which  forest  and  field  in  the 
Negroes'  part  of  Africa  swarm  are  in,  fact  frequently  memorials  of  lightning-strokes 
and  the  like.  The  deepest  impression  is  left  by  the  phenomena  of  the  starry 
heavens,  by  reason  of  the  majestic  calm  and  regularity  of  their  motions.  The 
existence  of  these  strange  appearances  so  remote  from  earthly  things,  their 
brightness,  their  great  number,  naturally  exercised  an  influence  on  the  mind  even 
of  primitive  men.  All,  even  Bushmen  and  Australians,  have  names  for  the 
constellations.  The  warming  power  of  the  sun  must  have  been  felt  with  gratitude, 
more  perhaps  in  cooler  regions  than  in  the  tropics.  Moon  and  stars,  lighting  the 
darkness,  are  doubly  welcome  to  savage  races  with  their  fear  of  ghosts.  The 
trouble  they  took  to  exorcise  the  obscuring  spirit  in  eclipses  of  the  moon,  the 
high  place  allotted  to  the  moon  in  the  religious  ideas  and  legends  of  all  races, 
are  evidence  of  this.  It  is  too  much  to  say  that  the  sun  as  giver  of  light  has 
been  revered  by  all  nations  as  a  divine  being  and  the  universal  benefactor. 
But  sun-worship  is  widely  spread,  especially  among  agriculturists,  and  where  ideas 
are  more  developed.  Even  on  the  magic  drum  of  the  Lapland  Shaman  a 
radiant  sun  is  represented.  Legends  connected  with  the  various  positions  of  the 
sun  in  respect  of  the  earth,  and  with  the  changes  of  the  seasons,  are  widespread. 
In  common  with  mother-earth  the  fertilising  sun  creates  all  living  things,  and  the 
stars  also.  The  souls  of  departed  heroes  make  their  way  to  the  setting  sun. 
With  the  sun  is  connected  the  worship  of  the  fire  which  must  not  be  put  out  and 
is  kindled  under  the  bond  of  an  oath.  The  Japanese  solemnly  brings  into  his 
house  at  the  new  year  fire  which  has  been  lighted  in  the  temple  by  rubbing  wood 
on  an  appointed  day.  Even  the  Russian  in  the  district  of  Tamboff  carries  all 
the  ashes  he  can  and  some  stones  from  his  old  hearth  into  a  new  house,  to  bring 
luck  ;  a  survival  of  the  transference  of  the  fire  itself. 

Weather  phenomena  impress  by  their  immediate  effects,  and  the  degree  to 
which  they  enter  into  economic  prosperity.  The  part  which  they  play  in  the 
beliefs  or  superstitions  of  mankind  is  thus  easily  comprehensible,  and  shows  itself 
in  the  frequent  occurrence  of  rain-  or  sunshine-makers,  the  purveyors  of  fertility. 
Somewhat  beyond  lies  the  domain  of  those  phenomena  which  never  or  seldom 
come  into  immediate  relation  with  man,  and  therefore  are  noticed  by  him  only 
when  they  force  themselves  on  his  attention.  Even  the  savage,  the  most  prejudiced 
creature  in  human  shape,  the  man  with  the  least  field  of  vision,  receives  an 
impression  from  the  rainbow  "  the  bridge  to  the  sky,"  from  the  roar  of  the  sea, 
from  the  rustle  of  the  woods,  the  bubbling  of  the  spring.  These  phenomena  are, 
drawn  into  the  range  of  superstitious  conceptions,  which  in  their  turn  are  called 
forth  by  nearer  causes.  Are  they  images  of  souls,  which  the  Ainu  place  on 
promontories  where  an  awkward  current  prevails  in  order  to  pray  for  a  good 
passage  or  a  lucky  haul  ?  Savages  know  how  meteoric  stones  fall,  and  have 
retained  experiences  of  them  in  their  traditions  ;  the  stone-hatchets  found  in  the 
soil  they  call  thunderbolts.  The  boat  with  the  corpse  is  launched  on  the  waves  ; 
the  dark  forest  is  overlaid  with  taboo ;  in  every  brook  a  spirit  is  imagined. 
Poetry  here  entwines  its  roots  with  religion  ;  it  appears  a  highly  superfluous 
•question  to  ask  if  these  races  have  a  sense  of  Nature. 

E 


5° 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


But  social  observances  are  also  mixed  up  in  this.  We  know  the  part  played 
by  beasts  as  symbols  of  the  social  groups,  as  totems  that  is.  The  Shaman  goes 
about  with  beasts  as  with  his  fellows,  puts  on  a  pair  of  artificial  stag-horns,  drinks 
the  blood  of  dogs  out  of  the  hollow  figure  of  an  animal,  has  a  hollow  wooden  bird 
swung  over  him,  sacrifices  to  the  river  god  out  of  fish-shaped  shells.  The  Giljaks 
employ  bears,  hedgehogs,  and  tortoises  for  magic  purposes,  especially  in  sickness. 
Every  year  they  have  a  solemn  feast  of  fat  bear  out  of  their  own  wooden  dishes. 
Legends  about  beasts  and  plants  form  a  chief,  not  to   say  typical,  part   of  the 

literature  of  primitive 
races.  Beasts  ever  find 
a  place  at  the  base  of 
the  genealogies  of  tribes 
and  chiefs.  Wherever 
the  world  of  Indian 
thought  has  spread, 
the  belief  in  the  trans- 
migration of  souls  ex- 
tends, especially  in 
their  transition  from 
apes  ;  even  Japan  once 
had  its  sacred  apes. 
Besides  this,  beasts 
impressed  themselves 
irresistibly  by  means 
of  the  good  and  harm 
they  did.  Man-eating 
savages  felt  themselves 
akin  to  the  man-eating 
beasts.  The  custom 
of  sparing  these  animals 
— indeed  among  the  Malays  and  the  Joloffs  of  Senegambia,  crocodiles  were  kept  in 
sacred  ponds — may  perhaps  have  another  interpretation,  as  when  Lobengula,  king 
of  the  Matabele,  made  it  a  capital  offence  to  kill  a  crocodile  because  mischievous 
magic  could  be  practised  with  a  dead  crocodile.  Even  so,  however,  the  beast 
religion  may  be  assuming  an  indirect  form. 

The  inquiry  about  the  One,  the  Lord  of  heaven,  the  All  Creator— God  in  short, 
is  not  one  of  the  first  results  that  emerges  from  the  mass  of  religious  ideas.  It  is 
only  incidentally  that  a  glimpse  at  Him  opens,  and  that  only  through  chinks  in  the 
thicket  of  idols.  The  conception  of  His  existence  which  we  gain  is  all  the  less 
clear  from  the  fact  that  the  streams  in  which  He  is  mirrored  flow  from  different 
sources.  Undoubtedly  ancestor-worship  leads  to  a  gradual  exalting  of  prominent 
figures  above  the  common  herd,  and  even  to  heaven.  We  can  point  to  such 
apotheoses  in  Africa,  as  well  as  in  Oceania  ;  among  the  Incas  they  even  began 
while  the  subjects  of  them  were  living.  By  the  transference  to  heaven,  the  con- 
dition of  far-reaching  dominating  influence  is  fulfilled.  The  millions  of  departed 
souls  must  have  chiefs  to  lead  them,  and  for  this  purpose  those  who  were  chiefs 
below  are  also  the  best  adapted  in  the  next  world.  Further,  if  it  pertains  to  the 
essence  of  a  god  to  accomplish  the  most  various  results  from  one  point,  without 


Fish-headed  idols  from  Easter  Island.      (Christy  Collection. ; 


RELIGION  51 

being  tied  to  thing  and  place  of  action,  he  must  be  raised  on  high.  The  weak- 
ness of  remembrance  accounts  for  his  appearing  to  forget  his  roots  in  earthly  affairs 
and  to  soar  above.  Thus  the  mass  of  souls  become  spirits  ;  in  their  images  they 
become  fetishes  ;  a  few  become  tribal  gods,  and  from  these  perhaps,  by  dissemination, 
may  proceed  gods  recognised  to  a  distance.  Jehovah  is  received  as  the  God  of  the 
world.  Creation  requires  at  least  a  first  man,  and  beyond  him  a  God  capable  of 
creating  him.  Usually  the  sky  or  the  sun  is  called  to  this  dignity ;  there  live  the  sacred 
primeval  ancestors  who  now  coalesce  with  the  creating  God.  Lastly,  consideration 
of  Nature  demands  great  ruling  spirits  for  the  great  things,  and  innumerable  small 
ones  for  the  small  things.  One  Spirit  in  heaven,  who  is  at  the  same  time  Creator, 
will  of  course  be  the  First.  Thus  from  different  points  there  is  a  striving  after 
one  high  Being,  one  God  ;  everywhere  we  hear  the  name  of  a  highest  spoken,  but 
only  faintly  and  indistinctly.  Frequently  he  is  literally  to  be  regarded  as  the 
eldest,  the  spiritual  Lord  of  the  tribe,  the  Sovereign  over  the  souls  of  the  departed, 
the  Creator.  It  is  dangerous  for  our  missionaries  to  assign  his  name  to  their  and 
our  God,  or  the  adherent  of  ancestor  worship  will  be  led  of  himself  to  put  a  mytho- 
logic  form  upon  a  first  man,  the  ancestral  lord  of  the  whole  race.  Unkulunkulu 
is  the  original  ancestor  ;  he  is  himself  the  creator  of  men,  a  mysterious  figure,  but 
mysterious  simply  because  the  Kaffir  has  abstained  from  figuring  him  precisely 
either  in  fact  or  fancy.  Thus  Unkulunkulu  resembles  the  supreme  heaven-god  of 
most  negro  religions  ;  a  being  unaffected  by  earthly  doings,  and  therefore  dis- 
regarded ;  and  corresponds  to  Molimo  among  the  Bechuanas  and  Basutos,  and 
Nyambi  or  Nyame  elsewhere.  The  origin  of  all  may  be  the  same  ;  but  here  it  is 
important  to  notice,  whether  memory  has  grown  so  faint  that  the  image  of  the  first 
parent  has  been  spiritualised,  or  this  image  is  still  so  recent  that  our  conception  of 
God  is  degraded  by  the  use  of  His  name.  The  missionaries  to  the  Hereros 
took  Mukuru  and  Kalunga  (for  which  they  had  at  first  put  "  fortune ")  as  the 
expression  for  "  God  "  ;  Nyambi  was  not  adopted  till  later.  In  pre-Christian  days 
the  Hereros  actually  lived  in  a  state  of  pure  ancestor-worship.  On  the  Gold  Coast, 
and  in  parts  of  East  Africa,  we  shall  see  that  more  pronounced  developments  in 
the  direction  of  monotheism  appear  ;  and  with^  these  Christianity  need  have  less 
scruple  in  linking  itself.  In  some  cases,  the  name  of  evil  spirits  (where  they  appear 
as  destroyers  and  renewers  of  creation),  has  been  adopted  to  render  "  God."  In 
the  New  Hebrides,  Suque,  the  name  of  a  secret  society,  has  been  used  for  this 
purpose ;  and  in  the  Torres  Islands,  Augud,  which  means  "  totem.''  The 
familiar  Manitu  of  the  Indians  of  North  America  is  not  "  the  Great  Spirit,"  but 
"spirit"  generally,  even  a  bad  one.  The  Polynesian  Atua,  which  the  missionaries 
took  for  "  God,"  may  have  originated  in  some  similar  idea  ;  but  it  is  so  universal 
in  the  sense  of  ghost,  soul,  or  breath,  that  too  close  a  contact  is  prevented  with 
notions  which  the  heathen  would  seize  upon.  The  fact,  referable  to  ancestor- 
worship,  that  within  one  race  different  spirits  are  assigned  to  different  groups,  which 
conduct  their  worship  in  secret  societies,  and  often  use  this  secrecy  for  purposes 
of  outrage,  naturally  hinders  the  growth  of  the  monotheistic  idea,  so  long  as  no 
one  of  them  is  in  the  majority.  Regulations  of  rank  in  veneration  is  no  sure  guide, 
for  the  name  of  the  god  venerated  as  supreme  changes  from  one  country  to  another. 
In  the  small  area  of  the  Society  Islands,  we  find  the  following  gods  holding  the 
supreme  place  : — Rua  in  Tahiti,  Eimeo  in  Raiatea,  Tane  in  Huaheine,  Tao  in 
Bolabola,  Tu  in  Maurua,  Tangaroa  or  Taaroa  in  Tabueamanu,  Oro  in  Tahaa.      In 


52  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

New  Zealand,  Rangi  (Heaven),  takes  the  highest  place  at  the  head  of  all  other 
gods.  In  Hawaii,  Tane  comes  to  the  front,  as  Kane  ;  with  him  Wakea  and  Maui, 
who  are  only  of  importance  in  mythology,  and  the  war-god.  But  as  we  shall  see, 
all  these  supreme  beings  can  lose  nearly  all  their  worship  in  favour  of  simply  local 
ancestral  deities.  Nothing  has  contributed  to  this  so  much  as  the  formation  of 
sectarian  groups,  who  struggled  to  keep  their  own  god  or  spirit  strictly  to  them- 
selves. As  they  grew  powerful,  they  imposed  their  own  divine  service  on  weaker 
brethren.  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  told  in  regard  to  the  Shillooks,  that  the  Niekam 
owned  in  every  village  a  temple  or  a  house,  often  the  whole  village,  which  was 
inhabited  by  a  privileged  and  much -respected  caste — a  kind  of  lords  spiritual. 
These  claimed  a  share  of  all  the  booty  taken  ;  no  man  ventured  to  touch  their 
cows,  even  to  milk  them.  The  chief's  wealth  was  kept  concealed  in  the  Niekam's 
territory.  In  Abbeokuta,  bundles  of  straw  indicated  the  property  of  the  thunder- 
god  Shango  ;  this  is  inviolable,  and  whosoever  lays  his  hand  upon  it,  incurs  the 
vengeance  of  Shango's  priests.  Indeed  Shango  is  an  instructive  phenomenon. 
Some  hold  him  for  a  king  who  in  his  life  was  very  cruel.  Others  say  he  was  a 
late-born  scion  of  deity,  only  recently  admitted  to  immortality  ;  sometimes  he  is 
the  thunder-god's  ancestor,  sometimes  his  companion,  and  then  thunderer  himself 
All  points  to  the  soul  of  a  chief  lately  raised  to  Olympus. 

The  shiftings  and  exchangings  of  names,  especially  among  non-writing  races, 
owing  to  the  recurrence  of  the  same  deities  and  divine  functions,  form  a  constant 
source  of  confusion  even  in  the  fundamental  threads  of  mythology.  It  is  therefore 
only  possible  to  disentangle  them  by  keeping  fast  hold  of  the  underlying  reality, 
setting  aside  all  questions  of  hierarchy.  To  see  in  some  isolated  fact,  like  the 
survival  of  the  first  parent  of  the  human  race,  a  special  and  higher  characteristic 
feature  of  the  American  form  of  the  deluge-myth,  is  only  to  fail  to  recognise  the 
multiform  varying  nature  of  the  myth  generally.  An  effort  after  selection  and 
elevation  lies  deep  down  in  the  human  mind.  Nothing  but  rapid  extension  over 
wide  areas,  and  the  keeping  of  all  decomposing  influences  at  a  distance,  is  needed 
to  raise  one  idea  of  the  deity  above  local  limitations  and  waverings,  as  we  see  in 
the  diffusion  of  Christianity  and,  Islam.  But  the  acquisition  of  power,  that  is, 
alliance  with  the  secular  arm,  is  also  necessary. 

The  notion  of  man's  position  towards  a  personal  Supreme  Being,  the  highest 
disposer  of  things,  to  whom  man  stands  in  personal  relations,  has  nowhere  grown 
up  in  a  pure  form,  but  always  only  in  fragments,  inadequately,  and  in  a  shape 
full  of  misconceptions.  Nor  has  religion,  in  the  course  of  its  development,  remained 
alone,  but  has  passed  into  more  and  more  intimate  alliance  with  other  efforts  of 
the  human  mind,  above  all  with  the  stirrings  and  cravings  of  his  conscience.  Thus 
it  received  its  most  important  adjunct,  the  moral  element,  and  thereby  acquired  a 
higher  influence  upon  general  civilization.  While  in  the  cruder  stages  of  religious 
development,  man  appears  almost  entirely  as  the  demanding  party  who  approaches 
spirits,  fetishes,  and  so  on,  with  his  wishes  or  even  orders,  the  execution  of  which 
is  paid  for  in  sacrifices  ;  the  spiritual  side  now  comes  to  power,  and,  equipped  with 
£eward  and  penalty,  rules  him,  not  by  guidance  only,  but  also  by  constraint.  This 
|harper  differentiation  of  the  moral  element  in  religion,  which  may  be  followed 
■rough  many  stages,  is  accompanied  by  the  clearance  from  it  of  a  mass  of  elements 
Khich  without  any  deeper  inward  affinity  are  apt  to  be  bound  up  with  it ;  as,  for 
Sample,  in  the  lower  stages,  not  only  the  service  of  the  superhuman  spirit,' but 


RELIGION  53 

also  the  care  of  the  spirit  in  man,  as  in  all  beginnings  of  science,  art,  and  poetry, 
matters  connected  with  the  sorcerer,  the  priest,  and  the  like.  Thus  we  have  a  point 
which  we  might  compare  to  that  where  a  number  of  vague  winding  tracks  meet 
to  form  a  few  clear  and  straight  roads.  The  alliance  of  religion  with  the  civil  law, 
which,  though  involving  many  humiliations,  has  in  the  end  an  elevating  effect,  frees 
it  at  the  same  time  in  an  increasing  degree  from  the  alliance  with  all  the  activities 
of  the  mind  which  are  to  develop  independently  with  art  and  science.  The  separa- 
tion takes  the  line  of  a  distribution  among  a  number  of  persons  of  the  priestly 
functions,  as  magicians,  healers,  rain-makers,  image-carvers,  court- minstrels,  and  so 
forth  ;  but  only  arrives  at  completion  on  the  threshold  of  the  age  of  art  and  science. 
History  first  shows  us  poetry,  the  arts,  and  the  sciences  in  independent  activity 
when  we  come  to  ancient  Greece  ;  in  Egypt  they  were  all  attached  to  the  priestly 
caste. 

The  alliance  of  the  temporal  and  spiritual  powers  is  to  be  found  in  all  stages 
of  mankind  at  the  present  day.  The  power  of  a  chief  is  incomplete  without  that 
of  witchcraft,  exercised  by  himself  or  in  the  closest  union  with  the  priests  ;  only 
fighting  chiefs  may  form  exceptions.  Even  here  the  bard  has  to  go  with  the 
prince.  A  failure  in  rain-making  may  totally  destroy  all  respect  for  a  prince  ; 
and  Africa  affords  many  instances  of  dethronement  and  murder  owing  to  ill-success 
in  witchcraft.  On  the  other  side,  one  can  hardly  conceive  a  more  powerful  support 
for  the  tradition  of  a  sovereign  house  than  ancestor-worship,  such  as  made  a  saint 
of  each  of  the  Cuzco  Incas.  Oceania  shows,  by  a  multitude  of  examples,  that 
princes  or  warrior-heroes  stepped  into  the  first  rank  of  the  gods.  The  succession 
of  power  was  thereby  materially  fortified.  In  this  connection  we  recall  a  remark 
of  M^rim^e's  to  the  effect  that  the  preference  shown  by  the  Romans  for  the  Etruscan 
above  other  Italian  races,  may  have  been  partly  due  to  the  knowledge  of  the  oldest 
religious  traditions  and  the  interpretation  of  omens  which  distinguished  the  Etruscan 
aristocracy.  What  is  good  for  society  and  the  state  is  indicated  as  pleasing  to 
God  ;  spirits  who  have  to  do  with  the  welfare  of  families,  societies,  states,  cannot 
but  be  beneficent.  With  the  immutability  of  the  divine  requirements,  the  variable 
demands  of  morality,  the  profound  and  in  part  noble  requirements  of  society,  are 
content  to  be  allied  where  they  enjoin  respect  for  age,  the  safeguarding  of  marriage, 
of  children,  and  also  of  property — this  last  in  the  form  of  the  highly  selfish  laws 
of  "taboo."  This  gives  the  blending  of  temporal  and  spiritual  interests.  The 
cunning  priest  whom  enlightenment  sees  at  work,  under  one  cover  with  the  prince, 
to  keep  the  people  stupid  is,  especially  at  this  stage,  no  mere  fiction.  Secular  and 
spiritual  law  are  fused.  If  the  chief  is  a  sacred  person,  any  revolt  against  the 
order  at  the  head  of  which  he  stands  is  sin  ;  and  now  religion  serves  for  the  more 
easy  taming  of  the  agitator  and  subverter. 

The  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  which  the  profound  sentiment  of  the 
Mosaic  story  places  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  process  of  the  Incarnation,  must, 
in  any  case,  have  grown  up  early  and  spontaneously  in  another  way.  In  Nature 
we  find  the  harmful  and  the  beneficial,  and  in  the  universal  animation  their  counter- 
parts pass  from  her  into  the  spirit-world.  The  feeling  of  thankfulness  toward  the 
Good  is  constantly  being  called  forth  anew.  Man  needs  it,  and  must  be  able  to 
pray  to  it.  Then  if  all  good  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  soul  of  an  ancestor,  we  have 
a  mythic  embodiment  of  the  Good.  But  at  this  point  the  Good  long  remains  as 
the   benefactor   of   the    individual,  not   of  the   whole   community.     There   is  an 


54 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


approach  to  this  notion  when,  as  in  New  Britain,  the  creation  of  all  good  things, 
whether  lands,  institutions,  or  only  traps  for  fish,  is  ascribed  to  one  single  being — ■ 
To  Kabinana  ("  the  wise  ") ;  other  harmful  things  to  another — To  Kovuvuru  (per- 
haps "  the  clumsy  ").  But  when  the  t^yo  halves  of  the  race,  who  bear  the  names 
of  these    creators,    show    no    recognition    of   rank -distinctions,    but    those    called 

Kovuvuru  are  found 
\i^^^^\  .™=^  throughout     on     the 

same  level  as  the  Ka- 
binana, it  looks  as  if 
only  a  very  weak  con- 
trast were  felt.  The 
deep  gap  between  an 
unmoral  religion  and 
one  full  of  morality 
is  attested  by  the 
human  frailty  of  the 
dwellers  in  heaven. 
Why  are  the  mytho- 
logical figures  of  the 
gods  often  so  aban- 
doned from  a  moral 
point  of  view — worse 
even  than  the  men 
who  adore  them  ?  A 
perverse  conception 
of  the  force  and  power 
whereby  they  have  to 
raise  themselves  above 
the  masses  produces  a 
false  ideal  of  divine 
greatness.  We  have, 
too,  the  fable-making 
element,  which  exer- 
cises itself  agreeably 
in  mythology,  and  has 
spread  over  the  whole 
world  that  other  false 


Magicians  of  the  Loango  Coast.     (From  a  photograph  by  Dr.  Falkenstein. ) 


ideal  of  the  cunning  divinity,  outwitting  others  in  adventures  of  love,  war,  even 
business. 

The  priest  is  the  embodiment  of  the  world  of  spirits  with  whom  he  has  to  hold 
intercourse,  whom  he  bans  and  exorcises.  He  is  fitted  for  his  duties  by  the 
expulsion  of  the  ordinary  soul  and  the  entrance  of  a  new  one  ;  he  best  adapts 
himself  to  them  when  he  differs  mentally  from  the  ordinary  mass  with  a  tendency 
to  mental  derangement,  epilepsy,  hallucinations,  and  vivid  dreams.  The  tradi- 
tions of  the  fetish  priesthood  are  propagated  by  instruction,  which  is  imparted  to 
suitable  youths.  As  a  transformation  from  the  normal  man  to  a  controller  of  spirits 
with  magic  powers,  the  training  assumes  the  character  of  the  miraculous,  even  a  form 
of  transmigration.      Those  whom  the  fetish  loves   are   taken  away  by  him  into  the 


RELIGION 


55 


bush  and  buried  in  the  fetish  house,  often  for  a  long  period.  When  the  person 
thus  carried  off  awakes  again  to  Hfe  he  begins  to  eat  and  drink  as  before,  but  his 
understanding  is  gone  and  the  fetish  man  must  instruct  him  and  teach  him  to 
perform  every  movement  hke  a  httle  child.  At  first  this  can  only  be  done  by 
blows,  but  gradually  his  senses  return,  so  that  it  is  possible  to  speak  to  him,  and 
after  his  education  is  completed  the  priest  takes  him  back  to  his  parents.  Often 
they  would  not  recognise  him  did  he  not  recall  past  events  to  their  memory. 

The  nucleus  of  his  art  lies  in  his  intercourse  with  the  spirits  of  the  departed, 
but  as  sorcerer  he  is  the  receptacle  of  all  knowledge,  all  memories,  and  all  fore- 
bodings. Many  Europeans  have  been  in  a  position  to  appreciate  the  operation 
of  his  medicaments  of  herbs  and  roots.  The  position  of  the  sorcerer  is  that  of 
the  doctor  on  a  higher  stage  ;  some  doctors  understand  certain  disorders — for 
example,  worms, — better  than  others,  and  to 
these  patients  are  sent  by  the  sorcerers.  Bleek 
asserts  that  among  the  Kaffirs  of  Natal  their 
doctors,  as  a  rule,  dissect  beasts,  but  that  in 
time  of  war  some  have  secretly  dissected  men  ; 
this  is  a  solitary  statement.  In  any  case  they, 
no  more  than  their  patients,  content  them- 
selves with  natural  remedies  derived  from  the 
animal  and  vegetable  kingdom,  but  they  ob- 
tain, as  they  think,  the  deepest  and  most 
secure  effects  by  the  intervention  of  super- 
natural powers,  whereby  also  troubles  other 
than  sickness,  such  as  those  of  love,  hatred, 
envy,  may  find  a  cure.  The  production  of 
hallucinations  was  familiar  to  the  priests. 
When    they  brought    these    about  they  were 

merely  creating  fresh  supports  to  faith.       Long       Dice  and  amulets  of  a  Bamangwato  magician. 
■'  =>  '^'^  .  ,  (Ethnographical  Museum  at  Munich.) 

before   science  they  were  m  possession  ot   the 

secrets  of  suggestion,  hypnotism,  and  the  like.  The  people  themselves  knew  a 
good  deal,  but  the  sorcerer  always  kept  the  best  a  secret.  Consider  the  power 
that  resides  in  the  mere  fact  of  tradition.  Often,  indeed,  the  only  kind  of  knowledge 
of  history  possessed  by  these  races  is  the  tradition  of  important  events  which  is 
handed  down  secretly  among  the  priests,  and  astounds  those  who  seek  for  counsel 
by  the  appearance  of  a  supernatural  knowledge.  Naturally,  this  knowledge  can 
also  be  put  at  the  service  of  the  sovereign  and  of  politics.  The  sanctity  of  tradition 
had  also  the  object  of  making  it  secure,  and  in  this  sense  we  can  say  that  it  replaces 
writing.  Writing  and  printing  have  damaged  the  position  of  the  priest.  The  art  of 
tradition  had  also  been  specially  cultivated  ;  to  it  belongs  the  knowledge  of  tradi- 
tional signs  and  pictures  in  higher  stages,  the  art  of  writing  and  reading,  if  possible, 
in  a  special  script,  as  with  the  Egyptian  priests.  Special  priests'  languages  recur 
among  the  most  different  races  of  the  earth  ;  the  fundamental  ideas  of  Shamanism 
are  accompanied  everywhere  by  details  similar  or  agreeing  even  in  the  smallest 
points,  of  a  kind  which,  in  some  respects,  is  not  everywhere  intelligible.  Arrows 
to  be  shot  off  at  the  completion  of  a  conjuration  in  order  to  lay  the  evil  spirit  form 
part  of  the  sorcerer's  equipment  on  the  Lower  Amoor  as  well  as  m  Africa, 
America,  and  Oceania. 


S6 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


The  employment  of  masks  in  religious  ceremonies  is  widely  spread  in  all 
countries  where  the  form  of  religion  is  polytheistic.  Beast  masks  and  human 
masks,  monsters  and  complicated  head-dresses,  all  find  a  use  in  religious  perform- 
ances. They  recur  in  China,  Thibet,  India,  Ceylon,  among  the  old  Mexicans  and 
Peruvians,  as  also  among  Eskinios,  Melanesians,  and  African  Negroes.  The 
Aleutians  put  masks  along  with  the  bodies  in  the  graves,  with  such  comically  dis- 
figured features  that  one  is  inclined  to'  take  them  for  dancing  masks,  which  at  one 
time  served  a  profane  end,  and  now  are  connected  with  serious  conceptions  of  life 
and  return  after  death. 

Prognostications  alone  involve  a  complete  science.  Their  number  is  so  great 
that  they  teem  through  everything  and  hamper  life  on  all  sides.  To  give  only  a 
few  examples  from  the  Kaffirs.  Eating  milk  products  in  a  thunderstorm  attracts 
the  lightning.  If  you  eat  milk  in  a  strange  kraal  you  will  commit  a  transgression 
there.      You  must  not  do  field  work   the  day  after  a  hailstorm  or  you  will  bring 


Masks  from  New  Ireland — one-eighth  of  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology. ) 


down  more  hail.  He  who  kills  a  hawk  must  be  put  to  death.  If  a  bird  of  this 
kind  settles  on  a  kraal  it  is  a  sign  of  bad  luck  for  the  owner.  If  a  cock  crows 
before  midnight  it  betokens  death  for  man  or  cattle.  The  same  evil  significance 
is  attached  to  the  springing  of  a  dog  or  a  calf  on  a  hut,  and  to  the  appearance  of 
a  rabbit  in  a  kraal.  The  whisker  of  a  leopard  brings  sickness  and  death  upon  any 
one  who  eats  it  unaware  in  his  food,  but  if  any  one  eats  it  with  some  of  the  flesh 
of  that  animal  he  becomes  brave,  and  has  luck  in  the  chase.  Dogs  who  eat  the 
beak  and  claws  of  birds  become  strong  and  courageous.  He  who  steps  upon  a 
thorn  must  eat  it  in  order  to  protect  himself  from  it  next  time.  The  horrible  and 
widespread  belief  that  no  fatal  accident  which  is  in  any  way  unusual  can  be 
natural,  gives  rise  to  a  mass  of  magic  practices,  which  pre-suppose  a  great  know- 
ledge of  personalities  and  their  influence.  Ordeals  which  in  Africa  are  intensified 
by  means  of  strong  poisons  are  surrounded  with  a  strict  ritual,  as  are  sorceries 
connected  with  rain,  the  renewal  of  fire,  and  the  most  important  periodical  incidents 
in  the  field,  the  cattle-stall,  and  the  chase. 

The  spiritual  elements  of  a  civilization  are  constantly  exposed  to  the  most 
rapid  decay.  As  it  is  just  these  which  are  the  motive  forces  in  its  forward 
development,  this  fact  alone  explains  the  great  tendency  to  stagnation  with 
inevitable  retrogression.  The  history  of  religions  is  specially  instructive  here. 
If  we  ask  in  which  elements  Christianity  has  undergone  the  greatest  modifications 


RELIGION  57 


among  the  Abyssinians,  or  Buddhism  among  the  Mongols,  the  answer  must  be 
in  the  most  spiritual.  All  founders  of  religions  have  borne  higher  ideals  than 
their  successors,  and  the  history  of  all  religions  begins  with  a  declension  from  the 
height  reached  by  pure  enthusiasm,  to  which  later  reformers  at  long  intervals 
endeavour  again  to  raise  themselves  and  their  fellow-professors.  In  monotheism 
we  taste  the  bitterness  of  the  sharp  experiences  of  life  known  to  advanced  age. 
Who  can  wonder  that  young  and  naive  races  do  not  esteem  it  in  all  it3  pure 
worth  ?  Abstractions  are  not  fit  for  the  masses.  The  same  holds  good  in  matters 
of  dogma.  It  is  not  purity  of  dogma  for  which  the  fanaticism  of  the  multitude 
cares,  but  for  having  the  religion  to  which  it  is  accustomed  left  undisturbed. 
How  easily,  in  the  extension  of  races,  the  deeply -differing  principles  at  the 
base  of  religion  tend  to  disappear  behind  forms  is  shown  by  nothing  better  than 
by  the  simultaneous  Buddhist  and  Brahmin  worship  that  takes  place  in  many 
temples  in  Burmah  and  Ceylon.  The  magnificent  ruins  of  Angkor  Bat,  in 
Cambodia,  are  a  unique  surviving  testimony  to  this  state  of  degradation  of  religions 
into  a  blend. 

Outwardly  decay  shows  itself  in  the  split  between  form  and  essence,  and  it  is 
here  that  the  first  rifts  are  formed.  Then  the  work  of  destruction  is  carried  farther 
by  external  decomposing  influences,  impaired  strength,  impoverishment,  loss  of 
independence,  dwindling  numbers.  Artistic  facility  does  not  keep  pace  with 
spiritual  creative  power ;  as  we  may  see  by  comparing  the  spiritual  imaginings 
of  Polynesian  mythology  with  their  representations  in  stone  or  wood.  The  spirit 
evaporates  without  leaving  any  creations  behind  fully  corresponding  to  its '  own 
power  and  grandeur  ;  but  the  forms  remain.  That  is  why  among  the  so-called 
"  natural "  races  the  forms,  even  the  most  rudimentary,  often  hold  a  higher 
place  than  the  essence  ;  and  this  alone  marks  a  stage  in  degradation.  In  almost 
all  religions  we  meet  with  blurred  traces  of  higher  conceptions,  and  not  only  in 
spiritual  but  in  purely  material  affairs,  like  those  articles  used  in  Buddhist  worship, 
which  have  passed  into  the  paraphernalia  of  Shamanism,  brought  thither  by  the 
active  traffic  between  the  more  opulent  Shamans  and  the  Chinese,  or  the  Christian 
crosses  which  in  Tuckey's  time  were  carried  as  fetishes  on  the  lower  Congo. 
Some  isolated  Christian  notions  had  anticipated  the  missionaries.  When  Dobriz- 
hofifer  was  trying  to  convert  the  Guaranis  on  the  Empalado,  an  old  cacique  said 
to  him  :  "  Father  priest,  you  need  not  have  come  ;  we  need  no  priests.  St. 
Thomas  long  ago  gave  his  blessing  to  our  land."  The  idea  of  a  Devil,  the  most 
conspicuous  evil  spirit,  was  spread  long  before  Christianity  by  uneducated  Europeans, 
and  has  led  to  the  assumption  of  "  devil-worshippers,"  and  a  dualism  of  good  and 
evil  spirits.  On  the  other  hand,  with  regard  to  the  legends  of  creation  and  the 
flood,  often  no  less  suspicious,  and  their  curious  accordance  with  Genesis,  they 
are  too  universal  and  too  deeply  entwined  with  the  whole  mythology  to  allow  us 
to  assign  them  so  recent  and  so  casual  an  origin  ;  part  of  them,  at  least,  belong 
to  the  world-myth,  whose  origins  date  from  pre-Christian  times. 

Have  we  in  religion  isolated  developments  or  a  network  with  closer  meshes 
here,  looser  there  ?  The  answer  involves  more  than  any  classification  can  offer  ; 
indeed,  we  shall  not  be  in  a  position  to  classify  aright  until  we  have  made  it  clear 
to  ourselves  how  much  is  the  common  property  of  mankind,  how  much  the  separate 
possession  of  a  race.  What  we  have  to  say  on  this  point  is  connected  with  and 
supplements  what  has  been  said  above  about  the  common  possession  of  mankind. 


58  THE   HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

"  Animism  "  and  ancestor-worship  are  common  to  all  human  nature  :  Bastian 
calls  them  elementary  thoughts.  As  we  may  learn  from  funeral  customs,  their  mani- 
festations often  agree  even  in  details.  From  them  we  could  reconstruct  a  universal 
doctrine  of  souls  as  held  by  savages.  Fragments  from  China  and  North  America, 
Germany  and  Australia,  fit  with  wonderful  precision,  and  form  a  united  body  of 
doctrine  consistent  in  its  fundamental  features.  We  have  seen  how  the  "  universal 
animation  "  of  Nature  connects  itself  with  this.  No  doubt  the  objects  which  it 
animates  are  different  in  Greenland  and  in  Fiji  ;  but  from  like  sources  it  draws, 
with  like  bounty,  superstitious  usages  absolutely  alike.  For  this  reason  the  men 
who  have  power  over  these  things  agree  so  extraordinarily  in  disposition  and 
character.  The  Shaman  of  northern  Asia  and  the  African  rain-maker,  the  American 
medicine-man  and  the  Australian  sorcerer  are  alike  in  their  nature,  their  aims,  and 
to  some  extent  in  their  expedients. 

All  mythology  has  outgrown  the  small  local  influences  which  once  must  have 
been  powerful  in  it.  We  do  not  mean  that  in  the  mythological  reflection  in  the 
popular  mind  of  regular  natural  phenomena,  it  is  not  often  some  slight  abnormality 
which  is  felt  as  such  far  beyond  the  measure  of  its  magnitude,  as  when  the  sun  is 
distorted  on  the  horizon  ;  we  do  not  overlook  the  fact  that  the  extent  to  which 
sun-worship  flourished  in  Peru  rested  upon  the  certainty  in  that  land  of  little  rain 
or  cloud,  that  the  brightest  of  the  heavenly  bodies  would  at  all  times  be  seen 
uncovered  ;  nor  do  we  forget  the  influence  of  historical  facts  such  as  meet  us  in 
the  legend  of  the  primitive  abode  of  Iroquois  and  Algonquins,  in  which  they  saw 
not  only  their  home,  but  also  the  places  whence  kind  white  men  with  beards  came 
to  them.  Here  one  element  may  preponderate  over  another ;  the  main  fact 
remains  that  they  were  bound  together  by  like  fundamental  thoughts  from  which 
what  we  call  the  world-myth  was  constructed. 

The  chief  trait  in  the  world-myth  is  the  opposition  between  heaven  and  earth. 
Heaven  appears  sometimes  as  itself,  sometimes  as  the  sun,  i.e.  the  sun  is  the  eye 
of  heaven.  They  are  interchangeable  ;  thus  among  the  South  Americans  a  belief 
in  heaven  replaces  the  very  marked  belief  in  the  sun,  as  the  future  home  of  the 
soul,  which  exists  among  the  North  Americans.  In  the  work  of  creation  the  sun 
is  the  assistant  of  heaven.  The  earth  is  always  opposed  to  both  ;  its  creatures 
are  subordinate  ;  it  is  always  regarded  as  the  female  upon  whom  heaven  begot 
all  existing  things,  man  in  particular.  With  sun,  lightning  (or  the  god  of  thunder), 
fire,  volcano,  earthquake,  is  associated  also  the  idea  of  an  assistant  creator  who 
approaches  the  earth  in  the  revolution  of  the  sun,  in  the  lightning-flash,  in  volcanic 
eruptions,  just  in  proportion  as  heaven  remains  remote  from  him.  Hephaestus 
and  Prometheus,  Demiurge  and  chastised  fire-bringer,  life -giver  and  destroyer, 
he  stands  at  the  centre  of  many  a  religious  system,  and  heaven,  the  All-father, 
comes  far  behind  him.  The  Maui-myths  are  common  to  all  mankind,  not  specially 
Polynesian.  They  might  just  as  well  be  called  after  Loki,  who  is  also  a  crippled 
god  of  the  under-world,  or  after  Daramoolun,  the  thunder-god  of  the  South 
Australian  races,  whose  name  Ridley  translates  by  "  leg  on  one  side,''  or  "  lame," 
or  again  after  the  Hottentot  Tsuigoab,  "  wounded  knee."  No  myths,  and  so 
not  these,  can  be  made,  in  proportion  to  their  wider  or  narrower,  denser  or  looser, 
distribution,  the  bases  for  conclusions  which  have  reference  only  to  limited  race- 
relationships  ;  it  is  quite  enough  if  the  characteristic  features  turn  up  elsewhere. 
Maui,  like  Hephsstus,  is  crippled  in  a  limb,  and  dwells  in  the  earth  ;   if  the  South 


RELIGION  59 


Africans  believe  in  a  lame  god  dwelling  in  the  ground,  it  is  the  same.  He  even  meets 
us  in  a  multiplied  form  in  one-legged  gnomes  who  dance  round  the  cave-dwelling 
fire -god  of  the  Araucanians.  The  cloud -serpent  with  the  lightning  is  to  the 
Nahuas  the  creator  of  man,  just  as  the  thunder-god  is  to  the  Tarascos,  or  Ndengei 
to  the  Fijians  ;  and  he  again  is  a  serpent  who  grew  with  the  foundations  of  the 
earth,  and  whose  movements  produce  earthquakes.  And  this  serpent  is,  again,  the 
sacred  dragon  of  China  and  Japan  with  its  endless  variations.^ 

In  connection  with  the  opinion  of  many  races  that  the  god  of  heaven  and  the 
light  who  dwells  in  the  east  is  their  creator  and  benefactor,  they  place  their  original 
abode  in  the  east,  as  the  Mexicans  sung  of  Aztlan,  the  land  of  brightness.  Still 
more  often  the  place  of  departed  souls  is  placed  in  the  western  sky,  where  the 
Islands  of  the  Blessed  rise  in  the  golden  glow  of  sunset.  In  the  description  of  the 
ways  which  the  soul  has  to  travel,  its  dangers  and  escapes,  lies  a  mass  of  simi- 
larities, which  is  far  greater  than  the  missionary,  with  all  his  energy,  can  have 
carried  from  one  people  to  another.  Readers  may  remember  the  Hawaiian  tale 
of  the  soul  brought  back  from  the  under-world.^ 

There  is  scarcely  a  single  legend  of  creation  in  which  a  tree  does  not  occur — 
the  tree  of  the  Hesperides,  the  ash  Yggdrasil,  the  tree  of  Paradise.  It  stands 
between  heaven  and  earth,  the  gods  descend  upon  it,  the  souls  find  the  road  to 
heaven  by  it,  or  it  becomes  a  rough  beam  for  them  to  totter  across  ;  in  short  all 
creation  has  come  out  of  it.  The  region  in  which  men  are  conceived  as  sprung 
from  trees  embraces  Hereros,  Kaffirs,  West  Africans  (cf  cut  on  the  next  page)  ; 
the  kindred  idea  of  an  origin  from  plants  occurs  among  Polynesians  and  South 
Americans.  As  a  geographical  fable  it  has  preserved  its  connection  with  that  of 
the  home  of  souls  :  one  of  the  Canary  Islands,  held  to  be  of  iron,  and  therefore 
waterless,  is  said  to  be  watered  by  means  of  a  tree  "  always  covered  by  a  dense 
cloud  ;  thence  the  leaves  of  the  tree  received  water  which  constantly  dripped,  so  that 
men  and  beasts  got  drink  enough."  This  was  believed  down  to  the  17th  century, 
as  may  be  read  in  Schreyer's  Neue  Ostindianische  Reisebeschreibung  (1680). 

The  men  of  the  present  day  are  in  many  accounts  only  a  second  later-created 
race,  separate  from  an  earlier  one  which  was  destroyed  by  some  great  catastrophe, 
the  falling  of  the  heaven  or  the  flooding  of  the  earth.  Cameron  heard  at  the  lake 
of  Dilolo  that  in  the  depth  of  the  lake  men  were  living,  moving,  and  acting,  as  if 
in  daylight,  their  entire  village  having  been  submerged  for  their  cruelty  in  sending 
away  an  old  beggar  man.  A  single  one  received  him  kindly,  and  so  saved  himself 
and  his  house.  It  may  be  thought  that  is  a  version  of  the  story  of  Noah,  through 
Arabic  or  Abyssinian  tradition.  But  we  find  the  story  elsewhere  also  with  local 
alterations.  The  water  especially  is  regarded  as  inhabited  ;  the  negroes  on  the 
Nile  can  tell  of  splendid  herds  which  the  river-spirits  drive  at  night  to  pasture. 

This  whole  mythology,  put  together  fragmentarily  and  only  half-understood, 
has  as  it  stands  before  us  the  interest  of  an  ancient  building  constructed  of  strange 
stones,  in  which  the  very  gods  of  modern  men,  the  returning  restless  spirits  of  the 
departed,  roam  about  in  a  thousand  forms,  to  which  nevertheless  it  is  only  in  a 
few  places  that  they  assume  a  relation  of  intimate  kinship.  The  fundamental  ideas 
of  animism  and  all  that  is  twined  round  it,  spread  over  the  earth  at  another  date 
and  from  other  sources  than   the  cosmogonic  legends,  the  myths   of  gods,  and   the 

^  [Dragons  also  live  in  mountain-countries,  especially  on  mountain-tops.     Compare  Salimbene's  account  of 
the  ascent  of  the  Canigou  by  Peter  III.  of  Aragon.]  -  Supra,  p.  41. 


6o 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


portraitures  of  the  next  world  ;  and  the  former  were  certainly  much  earlier  than 
the  latter.  Both  show  the  most  striking  similarities  in  the  remotest  regions  ;  but 
in  every  region  they  are  two  independent  worlds  of  ideas,  which  come  into  intimate 
contact  at  a  few  points  only,  while  even  then  there  intervenes  a  peculiarity  which 
we  may  call  "  free  invention,"  or  at  least  "  free  variation."  We  do  not  share  the 
view  that  every  custom,  every  usage,  of  these  races  with  no  traditions  must  be 
deeply  rooted  in  some  historical  association.  Much  comes  into  existence  in  sport ; 
the  Nyambe  worship  of  the  Balubas  is  not  the  only  case  in  which  the  suggestion 
of  a  whim  has  had  consequences.     Beside  the  great  similarities,  finally,  we  find 


Cemetery  and  sacred  tree  in  Mbinda.     (After  Stanley. ) 

the  smaller  ones.     These  help  to  explain   the    others,  of  which  they  are  often 
survivals,  roots,  or  offshoots. 

As  we  find  in  all  parts  of  the  earth,  where  Europeans  have  built  houses  and 
ploughed  the  soil,  the  same  plants  growing  in  rubbish  or  springing  from  seed  ;  so 
isolated  superstitious  usages,  of  little  importance  in  themselves,  sprout  up  as 
survivals  and  traces  of  thoughts  which  are  universally  diffused.  The  belief  not 
only  in  the  evil  eye,  but  in  hands  and  horseshoes  as  counter-charms  to  it,  is  found 
in  India,  Arabia,  North  Africa,  and  Europe.  In  Morocco  the  women,  when  in 
mourning  or  after  illnesses,  hang  little  balls  made  of  their  hair  on  certain  trees,  a 
custom  which,  as  the  hair-offering,  we  meet  with  in  the  most  various  forms  in  all 
parts  of  the  earth.  It  is  only  one  portion  of  a  complex  mass  of  usages  the  aim  of 
which  is  respect  towards,^  concealment  or  offering  up  of,  whatever  is  taken  from 
the    body.      Here    also    belongs    circumcision,    a    custom    most    irregular    in    its 


RELIGION  6 1 


distribution.  Zulus  practise  it,  Bechuanas  do  not ;  it  is  found  in  New  Caledonia, 
but  not  in  the  Loyalty  Isles.  In  its  special  ritual  form  again  it  runs  through  the 
most  various  and  distant  countries. 

In  conclusion,  we  may  refer  to  one  of  those  usages  which  seem  to  have 
something  playful  about  them,  and  of  which  for  that  very  reason  the  wide 
dissemination  strikes  us.  In  Ancon  and  Flores,  frames  made  of  reeds,  and 
having  many-coloured  threads  wound  over  them  in  the  fashion  of  a  flag,  or  a  star, 
are  put  into  the  grave  with  the  corpse  (Figs.  7,  8  in  the  coloured  plate  "  American 
Antiquities).  Among  the  Pimas  a  religious  significance  is  attached  to  them,  and 
we  find  them  in  Vancouver  and  Chittagong  without  any  nearer  definition  of  their 
purpose.  In  Egypt  they  form  ornaments  for  horses  ;  in  Bolivia  they  are  stuck  in 
the  rafters. 

In  order  to  take  a  general  view  of  the  extension  of  the  various  religions,  it  is 
customary  to  divide  them  into  a  few  large  groups,  to  the  statistics  of  which,  if  we 
only  demand  estimated  figures,  an  approximation  can  be  obtained.  If  the 
grouping  is  to  be  based  on  the  deepest-seated  differences,  in  order  not  to  break  up 
mankind  into  casual  fragments,  but  to  distinguish  them  according  to  the  true 
height  and  depth  of  their  religious  development,  we  must  not  always  take  into 
consideration  the  traditional,  superficial  forces,  Christianity,  Paganism,  Polytheism, 
Monotheism.  If  we  survey  the  religious  development  of  mankind  in  connection 
with  their  total  development,  we  recognise  that  its  great  landmarks  lie  elsewhere. 
Monotheism  arises  even  in  the  midst  of  polytheism  as  a  natural  effort  to  provide 
one  Supreme  Being  ;  while  the  monotheistic  creeds  are  invaded  by  the  impulse  to 
distribute  the  one  who  is  distant  into  several,  or  many  more  accessible. 
At  the  base  of  the  religious  development  of  existing  men  we  find : 

I.  Religions  wherein  the  divine  is  not  exalted  far  above  the  human,  and 
without  any  strong  moral  element.  These  rest  in  all  cases  on  belief  in  souls  or 
ghosts  ;  allied  with  this  are  sooth -saying,  medicine,  rain -magic,  and  other 
superstitions. 

In  one  group  we  find  the  association  of  natural  phenomena  to  be  only  slight, 
and  the  tendency  to  fetishism  accordingly  strong,  as  with  many  Negro  races  and 
the  Northern  Asiatics  ;  in  the  other  a  higher  development  of  cosmogonic  and 
mythological  conceptions  to  entire  systems,  as  with  Polynesians  and  Americans. 

II.  Religions  which  exalt  the  divine  far  above  the  human  sphere,  and 
progressively  detach  themselves  from  any  mixture  with  other  efforts  of  the  mind 
in  the  direction  of  science,  poetry,  and  the  like,  cultivating  proportionately  the 
moral  element.  The  belief  in  souls  recurs  in  a  purified  form  in  the  assumption  of 
a  future  life  with  rewards  and  punishments. 

(a.)  Polytheism,  which  allows  a  position  of  sovereignty  to  several  locally 
varying  gods  without  always  recognising  any  moral  superiority  in 
them,  as  the  Brahmins  and  Buddhists,  pre-Christian  Europeans,  the 
ancient  Americans. 

(iJ.)  Monotheism  in  different  grades  01  development,  according  to  the  number 
and  importance  of  the  beings  akin  to  gods,  saints,  and  so  on,  who 
intervene  between  the  one  God  and  man.  The  single  God  appearing 
in  the  highest  moral  perfection — Mussulmans,  Jews,  Christians. 

Christianity,  at  the  beginning  of  its  intimate  and  manifold  contact  with  non- 
European  races,  soon  laid  aside  the  prejudice  that  their  souls  were  not  destined  to 


62  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

salvation,  and  from  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  missionary  formed 
the  inevitable  accompaniment  of  trade  and  conquest — even  of  the  slave  trade.  Not 
only  as  an  institution  with  religious  aims,  but  generally  as  an  effect  produced  by 
strangers  among  a  race  of  whose  nature  they  often  know  very  little,  but  into 
which  they  try  most  forcibly  to  penetrate,  the  entrance  of  the  missionary  is 
important  from  an  ethnographic  point  of  view. 

The  monotheistic  religions  could  not  well  attach  themselves  to  such  a 
wavering  uncertain  conception  as  that  of  Nyambe  or  Manitu.  In  most  cases 
they  could  not  even  use  the  name  of  the  supreme  being  whom  they  found  in 
possession  to  denote  their  one  God  ;  misunderstandings  would  have  been  too  great. 
But  the  possibility  of  forming  a  connection,  even  of  fruitfully  cultivating  the 
already  prepared  soil,  is  doubtless  presented  in  other  religious  ideas  of  the 
"  natural "  races.  Theoretically  for  the  understanding  of  the  much-despised 
condition  of  religion  among  the  "  natural "  races,  no  less  than  practically  for 
estimating  the  prospects  of  Christianity,  it  is  worth  while  to  emphasise  these.  The 
idea  of  the  continued  life  of  departed  spirits,  on  which  that  of  a  future  world  also 
rests,  is  fundamentally  akin  to  the  Christian  doctrines  of  the  soul  and  immortality. 
To  cherish  the  memory  of  ancestral  souls  is  in  no  way  in  contradiction  with 
Christianity,  but  it  must  pause  before  the  deification  of  ancestors  with  which 
idolatry  begins.  In  the  cosmogonic  myths  of  natural  races  Christianity  finds 
traits  of  its  own  doctrine  of  creation  reproduced,  often  in  striking  agreement ; 
lastly,  the  Christian  doctrine  of  God  as  Father  and  Son  may  be  attached  to  the 
ideas  of  a  Demiurge. 

The  gap  opens  as  soon  as  we  set  foot  upon  the  moral  law,  that  essential  con- 
stituent of  Christian  doctrine.  In  spite  of  Abraham's  sacrifice  the  missionaries 
must  set  their  faces  firmly  against  human  sacrifices  and  the  low  value  attached  to 
human  life.  What  is  more  difficult,  they  must  extend  their  influence  upon  the 
morals  of  their  scholars  much  farther  into  the  domain  of  the  purely  secular  than 
did  the  heathen  priests.  Their  Christianity  must  have  a  social  and  economic  side, 
and  therewith  be  revolutionary  in  its  effects.  Polygamy  and  slavery  form  two 
great  stumbling-blocks.  Missionaries  seek  to  reach  their  aim  by  reforming  the 
economic  existence  of  their  disciples,  but  may  easily  go  too  far  in  that  direction. 
Certain  philanthropists  who  sent  a  missionary  with  Captain  Fitzroy  to  that 
forgotten  spot  of  earth,  Tierra  del  Fuego,  wrote  in  his  instructions  :  "  In  your 
intercourse  with  the  Fuegians  you  will  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  the  temporal  advan- 
tages which  you  may  be  capable  of  communicating  to  them  that  they  will  be 
most  easily  and  immediately  sensible  of.  Among  these  may  be  reckoned  the 
acquisition  of  better  dwellings,  and  better  and  more  plentiful  food  and  clothing. 
Consequently  you  will  consider  it  a  primary  duty  to  instruct  them  in  cultivating 
the  potato,  cabbage,  and  other  vegetables,  and  to  rear  pigs,  poultry,  etc.,  and  to 
construct  a  commodious  habitation.  You  will  probably  find  in  this  as  in  more 
important  things  that  example  is  the  most  influential  instructor.  You  must  there- 
fore take  care  to  have  a  comfortable  habitation  yourself,  furnished  with  all  necessary 
articles,  and  kept  clean  and  orderly.  You  will  also  fence  in  a  piece  of  ground  for 
a  garden  and  get  it  well  stocked  with  the  most  useful  vegetables,  and  also  surround 
yourself  as  quickly  as  possible  with  a  plentiful  supply  of  pigs,  goats,  and  fowls." 

This  is  a  beautiful  plan  ;  why  were  its  results  so  meagre  ?  Such  an  attempt  to 
bring  men  over  from  a  poor  but  easy  state  of  existence  to  one  which,  though  better. 


RELIGION 


63 


demands  more  of  them,  can  be  nothing  but  an  economic  revolution  which  is  not 
only  capable  of  bringing  blessings,  but  also  certain  to  cause  mischief,  and  the 
latter  sooner  than  the  former.  The  existence  of  the  Fuegians  may  very  well 
appear  dreadful  to  European  eyes  and  pleasant  enough  to  their  own.  The 
missionary  must  in  all  cases  start  with  a  notion  that  the  higher  civilization  is 
certain  to  have  a  decomposing  effect  upon  the  conditions  of  heathen  life,  and  that 
he  should  soften  the  transition  by  the  practical  schooling  of  his  disciples  ;  but  he 
should  not  play  the  part  of  artisan  or  tradesman.  This  contradicts  the  mystic 
element  which  resides  together  with  a  mass  of  superstitions  in  the  priesthood  of 
natural  races.  This  must  not  be  undervalued,  but  we  must  recollect  the  vows  of 
self-denial  so  frequent  in   Africa,  which  are  taken  with   special   ceremonies  and 


Boat-coffin  from  Timorlaut.     (From  a  model  in  the  Ethnographical  Museum,  Dresden. 

Strictly  kept ;  or  the  bodily  and  spiritual  acts  of  self-injury  performed  by  the 
Shaman  when  he  is  sending  out  his  soul  in  convulsions.  It  is  in  the  healthy 
alliance  of  self-denial  with  practical  work  that  the  success  of  the  missionary 
monastic  orders  lies.  The  aim  which  the  German  missionaries  to  the  Hereros  set 
before  them  has  for  its  basis  an  economic  and  social  development  such  as 
Christianity  might  entertain  ;  deeds  are  more  effective  than  spoken  doctrine  as 
they  are  shown  in  the  demeanour  of  the  missionary,  and  above  all  in  the  calm 
security  with  which  he  regards  and  treats  the  things  of  the  world.  Finally  the 
priest  can  only  make  a  breach  in  the  chaos  of  superstition  if  he  is  at  the  same 
time  capable  of  acting  as  physician. 

The  universally-recurring  combination  of  chiefhood  and  priesthood  leaves  no 
doubt  that  the  success  of  missions  depends  upon  a  right  estimate  of  political 
conditions.  Not  till  the  missionary  can  obtain  the  backing  of  a  powerful  chief 
will  the  discharge  of  his  task  as  a  rule  be  possible.  The  Austrian  mission  in 
Gondokoro,  started  with  such  sanguine  hopes,  collapsed  without  leaving  any  traces 
worth  mentioning  of  its  devoted  activity  (Speke,  with  some  exaggeration,  says 
without  having  accomplished  a  single  conversion),  chiefly  because  it  took  a 
perfectly  independent  attitude.      In   fact,  instead   of  any  government  which   could 


64  *THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


keep  in  check  the  Bari  population,  in  their  state  of  utter  political  decay,  and 
protect  their  property  against  themselves,  there  was  nothing  but  a  society  opposed 
in  its  very  essence  and  aims  to  all  missionary  activity,  that  of  the  slave-traders. 
Results  have  shaped  themselves  quite  otherwise  where  the  missionaries  have  been 
able  to  develop  their  operations  under  cover  of  even  such  toleration  from  a  chief 
as  Moffat  got  from  Mosilikatse  ;  or  when  they  have  enjoyed  the  protection  of 
powerful  chieftains,  as  Livingstone  among  the  Basutos  and  Makololos  under 
Sechele  and  Sebituane,  or  the  missionaries  of  different  denominations  under  Mtesa 
and  Mwanga  in  Uganda — though  in  this  instance  they  have  unfortunately  not 
been  able  to  keep  clear  of  parties. 

From  all  this  it  should  be  clear  that  missions  can  only  go  to  work  with  a 
prospect  of  success  after  thorough  study  of  the  religious  notions  and  secular 
institutions  of  the  "  natural  "  races.  Ethnology  owes  most  valuable  contributions 
to  many  missionaries  who  have  realised  this.  Very  frequently  it  has  been  the 
inevitable  study  of  the  languages  which  has  led  to  a  deeper  understanding  of  the 
life  of  a  race.  But  he  who  would  teach  savages  what  is  deepest  and  most 
essential  in  Christianity  must  also  understand  it  himself  The  least  successful 
missionaries  have  always  been  uneducated  men,  incapable  of  a  right  conception 
of  their  own  faith,  such  as  have  been  sent  out  in  numbers  by  England  and 
America  :  men  without  love,  who  have  often  been  rather  traders  or  political  agents 
than  Christian  ministers. 

In  conclusion  we  may  again  point  out  that  the  implanting  of  a  new  faith 
always  implies  a  simultaneous  transformation  in  civilization,  and  must  be  the 
work  of  more  than  one  generation.  A  mission  allows  of  no  hurry,  it  must  shirk 
no  trouble  to  heap  up  grain  upon  grain,  it  must  not  allow  itself  to  be  seduced  into 
snatching  at  opportunities  which  seem  to  afford  a  chance  of  more  rapid  progress, 
and  thereby,  even  were  it  only  temporarily,  diverted  from  its  true  aim. 

Next  to  Christianity,  Islam  is  the  chief  proselytising  monotheistic  religion. 
In  many  respects  it  seems  better  to  meet  the  comprehension  of  the  more  backward 
races.  In  Africa  and  Asia  it  makes  progress.  Its  extension  may  be  merely 
superficial,  as  in  the  negro  countries  of  Africa,  where  we  find  among  the  Furs, 
under  a  Mussulman  varnish,  the  belief  in  a  god  called  Mola  and  sky-worship  in 
full  vigour,  while  in  West  Africa  the  transition  from  the  Mussulman  mollah  to  the 
fetish  priest  is  imperceptible  ;  but  still  it  strikes  its  roots  deeper  than  Christianity. 
It  offers  no  logical  difficulties,  and  its  practical  commands  may  be  lived  up  to 
with  a  certain  laxity.  The  permission  of  polygamy  and  slavery  gives  it  an 
incomparable  advantage  compared  with  Christianity.  The  prohibition  of  the 
former  indeed  excludes  from  Christianity,  at  all  events  until  a  profound  moral 
renovation  takes  place,  all  those  persons  of  property  whose  higher  social  position 
is  above  all  things  indicated  by  the  ability  to  keep  several  wives,  and  for  whom 
this  is  the  chief  satisfaction  derived  from  their  wealth.  Upon  this  institution,  to 
which  even  missionaries  do  not  always  venture  to  offer  stubborn  opposition,  and 
which  quite  recently  in  the  southern  Ural  has  caused  hundreds  of  Tartars  to 
renounce  Christianity  under  the  eyes  of  Russian  officials,  a  great  part  of  the 
influence  of  Islam  depends.  The  general  upshot  is  that  Islam  is  usually  better 
suited  to  the  society  and  polity  of  the  least  advanced  races,  and  is  allied  with  a 
civilization  all  the  closer  to  theirs  for  the  reason  that  the  place  of  its  origin  is 
nearer  their  own  both  in  locality  and  in  climate. 


Printed  Tjv  the  Baiiogxaplusches  Inslitut.  Leipzig. 

WEAPONS,  UTENSILS,  AND  ORNAMENTS  OF  AMERICAN  INDIANS. 


WEAPONS,  UTENSILS,  AND  ORNAMENTS  OF  AMERICAN  INDIANS. 


1.  Wooden  club :  Haida,  Queen  Char- 

lotte's Island. 

2.  War-dance  flute,  Sioux. 

3.  Pipe:  Blackfoot  Indian. 

4.  Arrow :  Apache   (New  Mexico). 

5.  Racquet:  Choctaw. 

6.  Blunt  Arrow :  Apache. 

7.  Stone      Tomahawk :       North-west 

America. 

8.  Bow :  Apache. 

9.  Wooden  Club. 

ID-  Post   erected    in    front  of    house  : 


11.  Dancing  rattle  :  (?)  Apache. 

12.  Tobacco  pipe. 

13.  Shield :  Pueblo   (Cochiti). 

14.  Quiver  and  bow-case  :  (?)  Apache. 

15.  Scalping  knife  in  sheath  :  Blackfoot. 

16.  Medicine  bag  of  otter  skin. 

17.  Hunting  pouch :  Cherokee.  ^ 

18.  Bowl :  Pueblo   (Acomo,  Arizona). 

19.  Spear     ornamented    with    feathers 

(Uaup^) :  Brazil. 

20.  Bow :  Conibo. 

21.  Arrow:  Cashibo. 

22.  Arrow  :  Conibo. 


23.  Arrow  :  Shakaya. 

24.  Fishing-arrow :  Shakaya   (Orinoco). 

25.  Fishing-fork :  Pano. 

26.  Harpoon  :  Pano. 

27.  Arrow :  Cashibo. 

28.  Feather  -  sceptre    used    in    dancing : 

Mundrucu. 

29.  Feather-crown  :  Makusi. 

30.  Breast  belt :  Conibo. 

31.  Necklace :  Lengua. 

32.  Ornament  for  the  back :  Rio  Pastaza. 

33.  Carved  spoon  :  Pemba. 

34.  Bowl :  Cocama. 


Haida^ 

One-tenth  natural  size.     All  from  Ethnographical  Museum,  Berlin.    (When  no  place  of  origin  is  given,  it  is  lacking  also  in  the 
Museum  Catologue.     They  are  good  old  pieces  from  the  former  Royal  Cabinet  of  Art). 


SCIENCE  AND  ART  65 


Not  a  third  of  mankind  has  yet  been  won  to  Christendom.  Out  of 
570,000,000  estimated  of  monotheists  440  confess  Christianity.  Of  the  remain- 
ing 900,000,000  of  the  earth's  inhabitants,  the  Buddhists  with  600  occupy  the 
largest  area,  and  the  most  inaccessible  to  Christian  teaching.  It  is  practically 
from  the  residuum  of  the  lowest  heathendom  that  the  missions,  which  now  control 
3000  ordained  men,  have  gained  their  converts.  The  most  conspicuous  successes 
have  been  in  Oceania,  where  a  whole  list  of  island  groups  have  been  won  for 
Christendom,  and  are  now  sending  out  from  among  themselves  missionaries  to 
the  neighbouring  islands.  In  Africa,  Madagascar  is  almost  wholly  under  Christiain 
influence.  The  Hottentots  and  Hereros,  the  people  of  Siberia  and  Sierra  Leone, 
and  numerous  tribes  in  Angola,  on  the  Gold  Coast,  on  the  lower  Niger,  have 
become  Christians.  In  Asia  perhaps  i -400th  part  of  the  population  of  India  has 
been  baptized.  In  China  the  tale  is  yet  less  in  proportion  to  the  mass  of  the 
population — 65,000  in  all.  On  the  other  hand  the  Indian  Archipelago  shows  a 
larger  list  of  Christian  districts.  In  America  nearly  all  the  Eskimo  of  Greenland 
and  Labrador,  many  Indians  in  North  America,  and  the  greater  part  both  of 
them  and  the  Negroes  in  the  West  Indies,  have  been  gained.  In  South  and 
Central  America  the  Spaniards,  both  in  Church  and  State,  have  been  working 
at  the  conversion  of  the  Indians  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
with  rnuch  success  in  accessible  localities. 

It  is  obvious  that  no  one  can  have  a  thorough  knowledge  of  missions  who 
thinks  that  these  few  figures  express  their  successes.  We  must  always  think  of 
them  in  alliance  with  other  civilizing  forces,  to  which  they  act  as  a  stimulus  or  a 
check.  As  a  spiritual  power  they  effect  much  which  in  its  essence  is  spiritual. 
As  Warneck  says,  "  the  Gospel  puts  new  religious  views  and  moral  conceptions 
into  gradual  circulation,  and  these  surround  even  the  heathen  part  of  the  race 
with  a  new  spiritual  atmosphere.  Wherever  a  mission  has  taken  a  firm  footing, 
paganism  is  no  longer  what  it  was  ;  a  leavening  process  begins  which  ends  with 
its  decomposition  and  the  victory  of  the  Gospel."  And  besides  that,  the  emitted 
light  of  faith  radiates  back  warmth. 


§  7.   SCIENCE  AND  ART 

The  condition  of  scientific  development— The  slow  expanding  of  the  sense  of  Truth— Religion  and  Science- 
Age  of  fear  and  of  mythology — Friendship  with  Nature — Science  under  semi-civilization — Systems  of 
science  among  "natural"  races — Religion  as  the  common  ancestor  of  art  and  science — Poetry  of 
"natural"  races  —  Lyric  and  musical  art — Images  of  souls  and  gods — Priests  and  Artists — Origin  of 
ornament— Ornaments  of  men  and  heasts— Plastic  art— Arts  and  crafts— Sense  of  colour— Modifications 
of  style — Materials — Popular  sports. 

The  fundamental  labour  is  that  of  agriculture.  All  other  forms  of  economic 
activity  pursued  their  course,  hand  in  hand  with  this,  ever  more  rapidly  towards 
perfection,  till  they  attained  in  all  points  what  would  be  achieved  by  industrious 
and  skilled  hands — patience,  devotion,  and  lastly,  a  fine  taste,  so  high  a  mark 
that  later  generations,  working  with  improved  tools  and  clearer  insight,  have  in 
many  cases  not  been  able  to  surpass  it.  They  remained,  however,  stationary  at 
manual  and  individual  labour,  and,  under  the  restraint  of  caste,  stiffened  in  tradi- 

F 


66  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


tional  methods.  Inventions,  machines,  production  on  a  large  scale,  were  not 
reached  till  much  later,  when  a  creative  impulse  brought  into  all  these  activities 
the  mighty  element  of  advance  which  we  now  call  science.  If  manual  labour 
provides  the  basis  of  civilization,  the  training  of  the  mind  in  the  maintenance  and 
renewal  of  mental  possessions  gives  the  force  of  life  and  increase.  In  the  opening 
of  this  second  source  lies  the  cause  of  the  great  advance  from  what  we  vaguely 
call  semi-civilization,  to  what  is  called  by  us  Europeans,  and  is,  the  civilization  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  In  the  year  1847  the  following  question  was  propounded 
at  some  meetings  of  the  Paris  Ethnological  Society.  Wherein  really  lies  the 
more  profound  distinction  between  white  men  and  negroes  ?  Gustav  von  Eichthal 
answered  it  at  that  time  :  "  In  the  possession  by  the  white  man  of  science,  which, 
owing  to  writing,  the  elements  of  calculation,  and  so  on,  penetrates  ever  deeper 
and  gives  permanence  to  itself ;  while  the  negro  is  characterised,  and  his  stationary 
condition  explained,  by  the  total  lack  of  it.''  Of  arithmetic,  geometry,  astronomy, 
and  fixed  measurements  of  time  and  space  they  are  completely  destitute,  and 
therewith  of  what  on  that  occasion  was  named  initiative  civilisatrice.  Meanwhile 
we  must  ascend  high  in  order  to  find  what  is  in  the  highest  sense  science.  We 
claim  to  live  in  the  age  of  science,  and  if  perhaps  yet  more  scientific  ages  are  in 
store  in  the  future,  yet  we  more  than  any  of  our  predecessors  enjoy  a  science 
that  has  of  itself  achieved  great  things.  A  few  centuries  ago  science  was  still  in 
a  dependent  position  as  handmaid  of  the  Church  ;  we  can  trace  her  entire  deliver- 
ance, not  without  great  conflicts,  from  that  bondage.  But  that  was  only  the  con- 
clusion of  a  long  conflict  fought  out  within  the  human  race.  The  "  natural "  races 
show  us  science  in  its  lowest  stage.  They  are  not  wholly  without  it ;  but  their 
science  is  symbolic,  poetic,  still  hidden  within  the  bud  of  religion.  They  are  two 
flowers  which  cannot  expand  rightly  until  they  are  no  longer  in  so  close  contact, 
but  each  allows  the  other  space  to  unfold  freely. 

In  the  lower  stage  religion  includes  all  science  ;  and  the  poetry  which  forms 
myths  is  her  most  powerful  tool.  There  is  no  question  of  truth  ;  only  of  getting 
an  image.  The  sense  of  truth  is  uncommonly  little  developed  among  "  natural " 
races.  The  kindly  Livingstone  wrote  in  his  last  diary  in  Unyamwesi :  "  In  this 
country  you  can  believe  nothing  that  is  not  in  black  and  white,  and  not  much 
even  of  that ;  the  most  circumstantial  report  is  often  pure  imagination.  One 
half  of  what  you  hear  may  safely  be  called  false,  the  other  doubtful  or  not 
authenticated."  The  sense  of  truth  must  have  been  developed  slowly.  The 
most  highly  developed  races  seek  it  most  eagerly  ;  and  we  could  even  undertake 
to  grade  the  present  ^holders  of  civilization  according  to  their  love  for  truth. 
With  every  higher  stage  of  humanity  the  sense  for  truth  increases,  and  in  every 
higher  race  the  number  of  truthful  men. 

There  is  a  period  at  which  the  universal  animation  of  nature  forms  a  principle 
universally  valid.  Fear  or  attraction,  truthfulness  or  usefulness,  divide  all  nature 
between  them_.  That  is  the  highest  form  of  the  subjective  conception.  The 
next  is  mythological  explanation,  which  clothes  correct  interpretation  in  an 
intentionally  distorting  figurative  language.  Above  the  dreary  terror  which  for- 
bids the  Nyassa  negroes  to  mention  earthquakes — how  long  may  the  myth- 
breeding  effect  of  such  a  phenomenon,  from  which  science  at  last  issues,  lie 
quietly  under  the  terror  which  enjoins  a  superstitious  silence ! — soars  the  loving 
dealing  of  poetry  with  Nature.      One  can  speak  of  the  age  of  belief  in  ghosts^ 


SCIENCE  AND  ART         .  67 


and  that  of  mythology  as  successive.  In  the  former  the  bases  of  natural 
science  are  laid  in  the  affinity  and  acquaintance  with  Nature,  which  is  a  great 
peculiarity  of  "  natural "  races.  The  mingling  of  men  and  other  creatures  in  art 
is  no  mere  external  feature.  The  feeling  of  an  absolute  spiritual  distinction 
between  man  and  beast,  so  widespread  in  the  civilized  world,  is  almost  entirely 
lacking  among  savage  races.  Men  to  whom  the  cry  of  beast  and  bird  appears 
like  human  speech,  and  their  actions  seem  as  if  guided  by  human  thought,  are 
quite  logical  in  ascribing  a  soul  to  beast  no  less  than  to  man.  This  feeling  of 
kifiship  shows  especially  in  histories  of  creation,  and  as  a  deduction  from  these 
in  the  beast-legend.  An  enumeration  of  the  animals  to  which  beliefs  and  super- 
stitions have  attached  themselves,  however  copious,  would  give  a  defective  picture. 
In  some  parts  of  Africa  the  chameleon  would  be  prominent,  in  others  the  jackal, 
in  north-west  America  the  otter,  in  the  eastern  parts  the  beaver.  Nahualism 
{nahual=z.  beast  in  Quiche),  the  belief  in  a  familiar  spirit  in  animal  shape  who 
is  friendly  to  man,  suffers  and  dies  with  him,  is  one  way  of  bringing  oneself  into 
alliance  v/ith  the  animal  world  ;  totemism,  which  makes  the  tribe  descend  from 
an  animal,  is  another.  As  a  rule  the  myth-forming  powers  of  the  mind  are 
concentrated  on  certain  selected  points  ;  while  many  others,  which  to  all  appear- 
ance recommend  themselves  equally  well  to  the  myth-forming  spirit,  are  neglected. 
The  predominance  of  traditions  over  new  creations  is  nowhere  shown  so  clearly 
as  in  this  limitation,  which  indeed  has  a  touch  of  the  whimsical. 

The  fettering  of  the  intellectual  powers  by  giving  the  priest  a  free  hand,  and  the 
special  direction  which  is  therein  given  to  them  through  the  preponderance  of 
mystical  tendencies  in  the  service  of  superstition,  explain  much  of  the  backward 
condition  of  many  races,  and  produce  a  hampering,  one  may  say  even  petrifying, 
effect  not  only  upon  the  so-called  natural  races,  but  also  among  those  who  enjoy 
semi-civilization.  In  order  to  understand  this  effect  we  must  form  a  clear  view 
of  the  position  held  by  priests.  Shamans,  medicine  men,  or  whatever  they 
may  be  called.  In  ancient  Mexico  they  received  a  special  training  and  attained 
knowledge  and  power  in  the  following  subjects :  hymns  and  prayers,  national 
traditions,  religious  doctrine,  medicine,  exorcism,  music  and  dancing,  mixing  of 
colours,  painting,  drawing  the  ideographic  signs,  and  phonetic  hieroglyphs. 
This  science  and  ability  might  be  shared  with  others  in  its  practical  employment, 
but  as  a  whole  it  remained  a  privilege  of  their  caste.  The  superstitious  dread  of 
their  magic  power,  of  their  alliance  with  the  supernatural,  their  innate  or  acquired 
capacity  for  states  of  ecstasy,  increased  by  fasting  and  vows  of  chastity,  raised 
them  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  at  large  to  unattainable  heights.  The  artificially 
unintelligible  priest-language  contributed  yet  more  to  mark  them  off,  but  since  the 
aim  of  all  these  preparations  and  labours  was  the  service  of  God,  or  rather  of  spirits 
in  the  widest  sense,  the  elements  of  progress  in  culture  and  science  remained 
unaltered  in  the  germ.  This  religious  torpidity  among  races  whose  intellectual 
life  is  not  yet  supported  by  a  more  developed  division  of  labour  between  classes 
and  callings,  and  for  whom  religion  is  the  entire  intellectual  life,  means  a  fettering 
of  the  intellect.  Science  which,  when  left  to  itself,  is  naturally  capable  of  progress, 
in  this  alliance  is  crippled.  The  Lushais  call  their  witch  doctors  the  "  great  ones 
who  know  "  ;  it  would  be  better  to  designate  them  those  who  can,  for  from  their 
knowledge  proceeds  only  skill,  not  science. 

In    certain   directions   the  intellect   of   man    can   progress    in    straight   lines. 


68  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


which  for  us  are  practically  unlimited.  In  other  matters  it  must  necessarily 
revolve  about  certain  points  without  going  very  far  from  them.  To  the  former 
belong  scientific,  to  the  latter  religious  concerns.  The  creation  of  science 
therefore  forms  one  of  the  greatest  epochs  in  the  life  of  humanity,  and  among 
civilized  nations  the  deepest  cleavages  result  from  the  lack  or  possession  of  it. 
The  orientals  as  a  whole  do  not  understand  how  to  value  the  sciences  for  their 
own  sake.  Bare  interest  in  truth  characterises  them  but  imperfectly.  They 
esteem  knowledge,  but  on  grounds  which  are  alien  to  science.  When  we  find  in 
Chinese  tradition  one  and  the  same  prince  inventing  or  regulating  the  calendar, 
music,  and  the  system  of  weights  and  measures,  while  his  wife  is  regarded  as  the 
inventress  of  silk-worm  breeding  and  silk  working,  one  of  his  ministers  gives  the 
order  to  invent  writing,  and  another  carries  out  the  order  at  once  with  great 
success  ;  when  we  find  in  the  same  age  astronomical  observations  held  in  such 
importance  by  the  State  that  two  statesmen  are  punished  for  neglecting  to 
calculate  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  properly ;  we  see  in  this  close  connection  of 
science  with  State  power  a  proof  of  the  purely  practical  estimate  of  science,  or, 
one  would  rather  say,  of  knowledge  and  skill.  For  this  very  reason  the  most 
modern  scientific  works  of  the  Chinese  look  to  us  like  a  survival  from  the  Middle 
Ages ;  we  see  the  greatest  intellects  of  that  race  proceeding  upon  an  old  road 
from  which  a  sounder  new  road  branched  off  centuries  ago.  It  takes  centuries 
for  a  people  to  disentangle  itself  from  such  errors.  The  Chinese  have  had 
thousands  of  years,  but  they  stifled  all  originality  in  their  hierarchic  examination 
system.  Good  observation  and  false  conclusion  are  by  no  means  irreconcilable. 
The  Chinese  who,  as  indeed  their  art  testifies,  have  good  eyes  for  what  is 
characteristic  in  Nature,  are  above  all  no  bad  describers.  Their  books  of  medicine, 
in  which  2000  to  3000  remedies  are  described,  are  rich  in  definitions  full  of 
knowledge  and  apt  if  often  prolix,  and  still  richer  in  excellent  pictorial  illustrations. 
Their  classifications  too  may  often  claim  to  formulate  carefully  correct  principles 
of  thought,  but  it  is  not  pure  truth  which  stands  as  the  aim  of  all  these  efforts,  it 
is  rather  the  case  that  a  philosophy  full  of  preconceived  opinions  leads  them  astray. 
The  fact  that  this  Physique  Mensongere,  as  Rdmusat  calls  it,  excludes  all  encroach- 
ments of  the  supernatural,  and  fancies  that  it  interprets  all  phenomena  in  the 
simplest  possible  way,  lends  a  double  vitality  to  the  errors.  Explaining  as  it  does 
everything  by  extension  and  compression,  Chinese  physics  finds  it  easy  to  account 
for  every  phenomenon, — it  is  triumphantly  enthroned  upon  empty  words. 

All  civilized  races  are  also  writing  races  ;  without  writing  is  no  secure  tradition. 
The  firm  historical  ground,  upon  which  a  step  in  advance  may  be  tried,  is  lacking. 
There  is  no  chronicle,  no  monument  of  renown  or  mighty  events  intended  to 
immortalise  the  history  of  the  past,  which  may  spur  to  emulation  and  brave  deeds. 
What  lies  outside  of  the  sacred  tradition  passes  into  oblivion.  Human  memory 
being  limited,  it  is  impossible  but  that  when  the  poems  intended  to  glorify  a  recently 
deceased  Inca  are  learnt,  those  which  were  fashioned  in  praise  of  his  predecessor 
should  be  forgotten.  In  the  schools  of  the  Indian  Brahmins  we  learn  the  import- 
ance which  was  attached  to  getting  by  rote,  and  the  trouble  which  it  cost :  in  them 
the  Vedas  have,  in  spite  of  writing  and  printing,  been  orally  propagated  up  to  the 
present  day.  Every  scholar  has,  in  the  traditional  method,  had  to  learn  the  nine 
hundred  thousand  syllables.     Yet  writing  could  never  be  replaced  by  these  means. 

It  is   impossible  to  give   a   general   view  of  all   the   germs  of  science  among 


SCIENCE  AND  ART 


69 


natural  races.  Much'  is  no  longer  to  be  known,  more  has  disappeared  and  fallen 
to  ruin,  the  amount  possessed  is  very  unequal.  Hitherto  too  low  an  estimate  has 
prevailed.  The  reckoning  of  time  and  astronomy,  both  of  which  come  into  close 
relation  to  men's  needs,  are  indeed  the  most  widely  extended,  just  as  they  also 
stand  far  up  in  the  pedigree  of  our  science.  We  may  point  to  the  star  legends  of 
the  Bushmen,  or  the  observations  of  the  sailors  of  Oceania,  of  which  we  shall  have 
to  speak  later.  A  primitive  astrology  runs  through  the  religion  of  the  natural 
races.  Their  attempts  to  drive  away  eclipses  and  comets  with  all  sorts  of  noises 
point  to  a  feeling  of  discomfort  from  the 
disturbance  of  order  in  the  firmament. 
Falling  stars  denote  the  death  of  some 
great  man,  close  conjunctions  portend 
war. 

All  "  natural  "  races  distinguish  the 
seasons,  not  only  according  to  the  terres- 
trial processes  of  flowering,  ripening,  and 
the  like,  but  also  by  the  position  of  the 
constellations.  But  the  year  is  an  ab- 
straction foreign  to  many,  and  even  if  the 
months  are  distinguished,  their  cycle  does 
not  tally  with  the  year.  The  step  to 
science  is  made  when  sections  of  the  year, 
field  labour  and  such  like,  are  associated 
with  the  apparition  of  particular  con- 
stellations, for  this  assumes  observations. 
Naturally  these  are  carried  out  most 
extensively  and  most  acutely  among  the 
sea-faring  races.  We  find  the  Banks 
Islanders  using  a  special  name,  inasoi,  for  the  planets  on  account  of  their  rounder 
appearance. 

Civilized  races  see  in  poetic  literature  the  highest  achievement  ot  their  great 
intellects,  and  it  is  precisely  in  this  direction  that  the  natural  races  have  risen  highest. 
Hamann  has  called  lyric  poetry  the  mother-tongue  of  humanity.  Among  the 
natural  races  we  scarcely  find  any  but  lyric  poems,  and  these  express  love,  sorrow, 
admiration,  and  religious  sentiments.  Wherever  the  poetry  of  the  natural  races 
has  been  put  into  words  it  is  also  sung,  and  thus  poetry  is  closely  allied  with 
music.  As  in  the  case  of  our  own  poets,  we  find  here  also  words  and  phrases 
which  have  only  been  preserved  in  poetry,  and  unusual  lengthenings  and  shorten- 
ings for  the  sake  of  metre.  In  the  dancing  songs  of  the  Banks  Islanders  obsolete 
words  borrowed  from  neighbouring  islands  form  a  regular  poetic  language  to 
themselves.  There  is  no  lack  of  bold  imagery,  and  a  whole  list  of  artifices  such 
as  repetition,  climax,  abbreviation,  and  artistic  obscurity  come  into  play.  The 
alliance  with  religion  is  always  preserved.  In  Santa  Maria  the  following  song  is 
sung  in  honour  of  a  person  away  at  sea  : — 

"  Leale  ale  ! 
I  am  an  eagle,  I  have  soared  to  the  furthest  dim  horizon. 
I  am  an  eagle,  I  have  flown  and  landed  on  Mota. 
With  whirring  noise  have  I  sailed  round  the  mountain. 


Ornament  on  coco-nut  shell,  from  Isabel  in  the 
Solomon  Islands.      (After  Codrington. ) 


70 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


I  have  gone  down  island  after  island  in  the  West  to  the  base  of  Heaven. 

I  have  sailed,  I  have  seen  the  lands,  I  have  sailed  in  circles. 

An  ill  wind  has  drifted  me  away,  has  drawn  me  away  from  you  two. 

How  shall  I  make  my  way  round  to  you  two .' 

The  sounding  sea  stretches  empty  to  keep  me  away  from  you. 

You  are  ciying,  mother,  for  me,  how  shall  I  see  thy  face  ? 

You  are  crying,  father,  for  me,  " — and  so  on. 

The  last  words  of  the  poem  are  : — 

"  Ask  and  hear  !  who  wrote  i  the  song  of  Marcs  .' 
It  was  the  poet  who  sits  by  the  road  to  Lakona." 

In  the  form  of  this  lyric,  as  given  by  Codrington,  we  see  the  alliance  with 
music.  Choric  and  religious  songs  were  accompanied  by  music, 
and  there  are  sacred  drums  and  trumpets  which  may  only  be 
sounded  by  the  initiated.  The  Tucanos  of  Brazil  use  long 
flutes  to  invoke  the  spirit  Yurupari.  Women  may  not  look 
upon  him  and  conceal  themselves  at  the  sound  of  these  instru- 
ments, which  at  other  times  are  kept  under  water. 

But  there  is  more  than  this  in  poetry.      It  embraces  legends 
which  are  not  merely  fiction  but  contain  in  them  the  whole  intel- 
lectual possession  of  the  race,  history,  customs,  law,  and  religion, 
and  thereby  are  an  important  aid  to  the  preservation  of  know- 
ledge   from    one    generation    to    another.        Many    legends    are 
mythological   fragments   differing   outwardly  from   myth  by  their 
fragmentary    character  and    lack    of    point.       Many    myths    are 
nothing  but  picturesque  descriptions  of  natural  events  and  per- 
sonifications  of  natural  forces.      These  bridge  over   the   interval 
to  science,  for  in  them  mythology  becomes,  like  science,  the  way 
and  the  method  towards  the  knowledge  of  the  causes  of  pheno- 
mena.    The  original  object  falls  into  the  background,  the  images 
become  independent  figures  whose  quarrels  and  tricks  have  an 
interest  of  their  own.     Therewith  we  have  the  fable,  especially 
the  widespread  beast  fable.      Here  the  immediate  operations  of 
Nature  are   indulged   with  a  wider   play.      Just  as    the    sacred 
mountains    and    forests,    the    sacred    sea    and    its    cliffs,    protest 
against  any  denial  of  the  sentiment  of  Nature  among  the  races 
Piece  of  bamboo  with  that  have  HO  literature,  so  do  their  myths  and  hymns  testify  to 
New"He'bHdeT  ^^  '^'^  deep  impression  made  by  Nature.     The  connection  of  many 
(After  Codrington. )    a  little  poem  with  the  song  of  birds  is  obvious.      Light  and  dark- 
ness, day  and  night,  arouse  feelings  of  pleasure  and  discomfort ; 
white,   red,   and  green,  embody   benevolent  natural    forces    and    daemons  ;    black 
those    that    are    dreaded.       Sunrise    and    sunset,   storm,   rainbow,   the    glow    of 
evening,  are   most  adapted   to   find   a   lyric  echo   where   sun  and   fire  are  objects 
of   adoration.       What   light   and   darkness    are   for   the  eye,  sound    and   silence 
are  for  the  ear.      The    rumble   of  thunder,  the  muffled   roar  of  beasts   of    prey, 
contrasted   with   the  clear  ripple  of  the   spring,  the   plash  of  the  waves,  and   the 
song  of  birds.      In  a  series  of  pictures,  copious  though  limited  by  the  constraint  of 
customary  expression,  the  poetry  and  pictorial  art  of  the  natural  races  contrives 

^  Literally  measured. 


SCIENCE  AND  ART  7i 


to  express  this.  On  one  side  of  the  mysterious  Papuan  bull-roarer,  the  object  of 
religious  devotion,  is  depicted  the  resting  moth,  on  the  other  the  whirring  moth : 
what  a  simple  and  impressive  picture  language  ! 

Pictorial  art  has  also,  even  where  it  seems  to  have  passed  entirely  into  a  trade, 
its  connection  with  religion.  The  execution  of  carvings  was  among  the  tasks  of 
holy  men,  who  imported  mythological  ideas  into  all  the  detail.  If  we  look  at  the 
instruments  used  by  a  priest  on  the  Amoor  or  the  Oregon  we  see  the  connection 
between  art  and  religion  as  plainly  as  if  we  entered  a  village  chapel  or  a  Buddhist 
temple.  Polynesia  presents  an  astounding  abundance  of  carved  work  which 
unhappily  with  its  enigmatic  fajicy  is  to  us  a  seven  times  sealed  book.  But  we 
know  that  at  one  time  the  axes  of  Mangaia  in  the  Hervey  Islands  might  only  be 
carved  with  sharks'  teeth,  that  the  openings  were  called  "  eel- borings,"  the  projections 
cliffs,  and  that  the  whole  ornamentation  was  one  mass  of  symbols.     The  clay 


Plaited  hat  of  the  Nootka  Indians   showing  eye-ornament.     (Stockholm  Ethnographical  Museum. ) 

^ 

bowls  of  the  Pueblo  Indians  have  step-shaped  edges,  to  denote  the  steps  by  which 
the  spirit  may  get  into  the  vessel.  The  perpetual  repetitions  of  the  same  little 
figures  are  just  like  the  555  images  of  Buddha  in  the  temple  of  Burubudor  in 
Java,  the  expression  of  inarticulateness  in  religion  and  rigidity  in  art.  The  art  of 
"  natural  "  races  much  prefers  its  elements  to  be  of  small  bulk,  but  from  these  it  puts 
together  the  largest  works.  In  the  squeezed  or  twisted  figures  of  men  or  animals 
piled  one  on  another  in  the  door-posts  of  the  New  Zealanders  or  New  Caledonians, 
or  the  family  pillars  of  the  Indians  of  North-West  America,  no  single  detail  has  a 
chance  of  being  fairly  represented.  No  freedom  is  shown  except  in  their 
decorative  combination.  For  this  reason  out  of  all  the  many  magnificent  works 
executed  in  America,  sculpture  never  succeeded  in  attaining  to  freedom. 
Tradition  was  just  as  depressing  here  as  in  the  much  cruder  work  of  the  West 
African  carvers  of  fetishes,  who  inhabit  a  regular  industrial  village  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Beh  the  sacred  village  of  Togo.  Even  under  the  patterns  of  the 
tapa  of  Oceania,  as  shown  on  our  coloured  plate,  symbols  are  concealed.  Thus, 
as  Bastian  puts  it,  all  decorative  art  appears  to  be  a  system  of  symbols,  preliminary 
to  writing,  and  is  intended  to  convey  a  definite  meaning.  Art,  in  its  efforts  after 
expression,  develops  but  slowly,  and  does  not  emerge  into  full  freedom  until  the 
moment  when  for  its  own  sake  it  has  forgotten  that  purpose.      From  the  symbols, 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


JLL 


simple  masses  and  lines  are  composed,  which  are  coloured,  shaped,  and  arranged 
so  as  to  correspond  with  the  sense  of  beauty.  But  even  then  the  ornament  is 
only  an  idealised  copy  from  Nature,  most  often  from  a  human  face  or  figure. 
From  almost  every  Persian  carpet  there  looks  at  us  at  least  the  one  widely- 
opened  eye,  which  averts  the  evil  eye.      The  decorative  treatment  of  the  face  turns 

up  in   such  abundance  and  in    so    many 
forms    that    it    practically   recurs   in    all 
ornament    above    the    most    elementary. 
The    occurrence    of    "  ocellate "    patterns 
testifies  to  its    presence  where  it  would 
be  least  suspected.      In   the  objects  dis- 
covered at  Ancon  the  most  magnificent 
ornament  is   grouped   about   large    faces 
or   figures  with  very   prominent  faces  as 
centres.       On    the     monolithic     gate    of 
Tiahuanuco  are  human  figures,  arbitrarily 
conventionalised,  and  composed  of  similar 
but  smaller  figures.    Attentive  comparison 
seems  at  last  to  justify  us  in  rediscovering 
the   human   form   in    almost  every  orna- 
ment   and    every    grotesque    of   ancient 
America.      But  it  is  striking  to  see  how 
much  the  subjects  of  primitive  art  differ. 
Australians  rarely  make  any  representa- 
tions of  the  human  figure  ;  and  they  are 
very    rare    in    East    and    South    Africa. 
Livingstone  makes  his  reflections  on  the 
fact   that   idols   do   not    become  frequent 
until   north  of  the   Makololo  ;    while  on 
the  Upper  Nile,  in  West  Africa  on  the 
Congo,  in    Guinea,   they  occur  in    great 
number.      These   images  were  also  used 
for  secular  purposes.    May  not  the  Kioko 
clubs,   carved    with    human    heads,  have 
been  originally  idols,  carried   in  the  hand 
instead   of   being    stuck   in    the   ground  ? 
What  we  regard  as  the  work  of  a  sportive 
whim,  those  gnarled   birch-roots  often  of 
very  curious   forms,  which   the  Chinese  convert   into  human   figures  with  one  or 
two   cuts   and   dots,   carry  us   back   to  the  widespread   tendency  to   see  in    such 
freaks  of  Nature  more  than  chance,  something  indeed  which  may  be  of  mysterious 
service  in  magic  or  medicine. 

In  art  we  find  once  more  the  bias  of  religion  towards  universal  animation. 
An  element  at  the  base  of  all  primitive  art  is  the  close  alliance  of  men  and 
animals  in  the  ornament.  This  corresponds  to  the  religious  view  which  dreads  or 
reveres  a  human  soul  in  every  beast.  Accordingly  in  the  richest  store  of 
conventional  sculpture  which  we  possess,  that  of  the  ancient  Americans,  human 
faces  and   figures,  most  frequently  eyes,  occur   in   the  greatest   abundance.      Next 


Carved  clubs  from  Lunda.      (Buchner  collection  in 
the  Munich  Ethnographical  Museum.) 


SCIENCE  AND  ART 


73 


to  them  come  animal  figures,  feathers,  ribbons  ;  parts  of  plants  very  seldom. 
W.  Reiss  draws  special  attention  to  a  Peruvian  robe  of  state  exhibited  some  years 
ago  in  Madrid,  for  the  very  reason  that  its  ornament,  contrary  to  the  usual  rule,  is 
taken  from  plant  forms.  Feathers,  tortoises,  lizards,  crocodiles,  frogs,  snakes  are 
represented  with  remarkable  fidelity.  The  sun-bird  with  outspread  wings  is  »a 
favourite  symbol  and  theme  for  ornament  from  Egypt  to 
Japan  and  Peru  ;  the  portal  of  Ocosingo  shows  a  typical 
development  of  it.  Grotesques  of  men  and  beasts,  dis- 
torted and  involved  out  of  all  knowledge,  such  as  even 
the  Maya  writing  displays,  are  often  drawn  with  great 
skill  and  boldness  of  caricature.  The  often-quoted  ele- 
phants' trunks  on  monuments  at  Uxmal,  and  on  golden 
figures  of  men,  may  be  explained  either  by  the  tapir's 
snout,  or  a  comic  elongation  of  the  human  feature. 
Death's  heads  are  among  the  most  widespread  subjects  ; 
hewn  in  stone  they  form  long  friezes,  and  adorn  the 
approach  to  temples  at  Copan  and  elsewhere.  A  corre- 
sponding case  is  when  the  temple  gapes  upon  the 
beholder  with  a  door  shaped  like  a  serpent's  jaws,  or, 
as  in  a  house  at  Palenque,  the  whole  front  forms  a 
horrible  monster,  whose  mouth  is  the  wide  doorway,  and 
the  bars  of  the  sculptured  lintel  his  teeth. 

If  amid  this  abundance  of  images  there  comes  to  light 
so   little  of  any  importance  that,  in   countries  where  the 


Tobacco-pipe  carved  out  of  slate,  from  Queen  Charlotte  Islands, 
British  Columbia.      (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology. ) 


New  Zealand  tobacco- 
pipe.  (Christy  Col- 
lection. ) 


climate  made  it  much  easier  to  go  without  clothes  than  in  Greece,  the  representa- 
tion of  the  naked  human  body  was  scarcely  attempted,  this  can  only  be  explained 
by  the  religious  fetters  in  which  art  was  bound.  Almost  everything  is  clothed,  the 
faces  tattooed  or  covered  with  a  ceremonial  mask.  In  these  external  points,  so 
unimportant  for  us,  the  Mexican  or  Peruvian  artist  put  his  whole  strength.  He 
represented  beautifully  the  feather  robes,  the  ribbon  ornament ;  his  death's  head 
or  his  frog  is  true  to  nature,  but  almost  every  human  figure,  on  the  contrary, 
childishly  crude  and  disproportioned.  The  exceptions  to  this  are  rare.  When 
do  we  find  even  a  living  nose  or  a  speaking  mouth?  The  wide  distinction 
between  the  highest  point  reached  by  barbaric  art  and  the  Egyptian  art  from 
which    the    Greek    and    all    faithful    imitation    of    Nature    started,    lies    in    the 


74 


THE   HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


fact  that  the  former  made  no  effort  to  represent  the  human  form  as  such,  but 
smothered  it  in  wrappings  and  Symbols.  When  we  consider  the  stiffly  designed 
figures  of  the  Egyptians,  we  get  the  impression  that  they  were  on  the  road  to 
become  great  sculptors  ;  indeed,  in  some  works  they  already  came  near  to  it. 
The  Mexicans,  Peruvians,  Indians,  were  upon  quite  another  road,  which  led  them 

far  from  this  ideal.  While  the 
highest  aim  of  sculpture  is  to  be 
sought  in  the  representation  of  the 
human  body,  the  essence  of  their 
carved  work  consists  in  neglect  of 
the  body  and  disproportionate  em- 
phasis on  accessories.  Only  in  the 
technique  of  arabesques  could  they 
attain  to  anything  of  importance, 
but  that  led  them  into  a  blind  alley, 
craftsmanship  instead  of  art. 

In  what  are  nowadays  called 
the  industrial  arts,  the  restraint  was 
far  less  ;  here  we  do  find  faultless 
performances.  A  Peruvian  vase 
of  red  earthenware  ;  a  beautifully 
polished,  perfectly  symmetrical,  bow 
from  Guiana ;  a  steel  axe  inlaid 
with  copper  or  brass  from  Kassai- 
land  ;  a  spoon  carved  by  Kaffirs  in 
the  shape  of  a  giraffe  ;  a  club  or 
feather  helmet  from  Oceania,  are 
creations  perfect  in  themselves. 
These  are  things  upon  which  the 
highest  art  of  the  west  could  not 
improve.  In  plaiting,  the  industry 
of  the  natural  races  produces  better 
work,  both  technically  and  artistic- 
ally, than  the  civilized  races  could 
show.  With  the  support  of  its 
close  ally,  embroidery,  the  applique^ 
method  prevails  in  the  ornamenta- 
tion of  work  in  leather  and  cotton 
stuffs  throughout  North  and  West  Africa,  and  to  some  extent  also  in  North 
America.  The  scale  of  colour  is  frequently  not  great,  but  the  sense  for  colour 
is  well  cultivated.  West  Africans,  especially  Houssas,  often  show  more  taste 
in  choosing  the  colours  of  their  clothing.  They  pre-eminently  avoid  calicoes  of 
many  colours,  the  evidences  of  machine  industry  which  art  has  deserted.  It  is 
precisely  in  the  matter  of  colour  that  the  characteristic  of  a  geographical  region 
often  lies.  The  hard  red,  white,  and.  black,  is  typical  of  New  Britain  and  the 
surrounding  parts.  One  of  the  districts  richest  in  colour  is  North- West  America, 
which  makes  the  contrast  all  the  more  striking  as  we  pass  from  the  Alaskan  region 
to  the   Magemuts  and  Kuskwogmuts,  whose  flat  round  masks,  with  their  crowns 


Ornamental  goblet  from  West  Africa.      ( British  Museum. ) 


SCIENCE  AND  ART 


of  leathers,  are  coloured  white,  gray,  and  dingy  brown.  One  seems  to  have  come 
back  from  a  spnng  meadow  of  many  colours  into  winter.  The  pegs  of  green 
stone  m  their  lips,  the  dark  brown  wooden  dishes  inlaid  with  white  bone,  the  thin 
strings  of  pearls  twined  round  ears  and  lips,  do  not  give  a  very  strong  colouring 
to  the  snowy  landscape. 

Many  as  are  the  directions  in  which  style  varies,  the  degrees  of  development 
are  yet  more  various.      In  originality,  fineness,  and  richness,  nothing  can  touch  the 
work  of  some  of  the  Pacific  races,  especially  the  North-West  Americans  and  their 
neighbours  farther  north.     Also  some  groups  in  Oceania,  especially  the  Maoris  • 
we  say  nothing  here  about  the  still  higher  Peruvians.     The  richness  of  Polynesian 
work  IS  astonishing,  in  spite  of  their  limited  materials— shells,  coco-nut  shells, 
a  little  wood  and  stone.      In  these  laborious  combinations  of  small  things,  there  is 
far  more  labour  than  in  most  of  the  African  objects,  which  betray  more  talent  than 
industry.     The  Africans  and  Malays,  who  are  provided  with  iron  and  other  things 
from  Asia,  achieve  less  in  proportion  than  the  isolated  Eskimo.     The  position  of 
Japan,  with  its  wealth  of 
most    successful    imita- 
tions      from       Nature, 
seems  less  strange  when 
we   consider    the   num- 
ber    and     the     careful 
execution  of  human  and 
animal    figures    among 
the  tribes  of  the  Pacific. 
Whereas    the    Moorish 
Arabic        style        runs 
throughout   Africa,   the 
Indian    style    through    Malaysia,    all    the    inhabitants    of    the    North    Pacific    are 
allied  by  similarity  of  style  with  Japan.      Australia  and  South  America,  excepting 
Peru,    stand    apart    as    less    fertile    but   original    territories.       Materials,   too,    are 
unequally  apportioned    and    used.       The  African   works  in    iron    and   ivory,  and 
leather  or  hide  ;    the   Australian  in   wood  or   stone ;    the  man  of  the  far  north 
in  walrus   tusk.       The  Polynesian  produces  his    best   results   working   in    stone 
and  shells  ;  some  American  tribes  surpass   all   others   in  pottery.      The  reaction 
of  the   material    upon    the  art,   however,  is    often    over-estimated.       The   patient 
hand    of   the    ancient  Mexican    shaped   the   most   artistic    works    in    the    most 
refractory  stone,  such  as  obsidian.      The  material   is  of  only  small   importance  in 
regard  to  the  degree  to  which  arts  and  crafts  are  developed  among  the  natural 
races.      Australia,  with  its  wealth  of  timber,  produces  less  in  the  way  of  woodwork 
than    some    small   island   which   possesses  nothing  but  coco -nut.      The  material 
often  gives  its  direction  to  the  technique,  but  does  not  determine  it.      Similarly  it 
imparts  faint  shades  of  colour,  but  the  human  intellect  and  will  is  at  the  root  of  the 
matter.      The  achievements  of  the  Africans  in  iron,  to  some  extent  combined  with 
copper  and  brass,  are  pre-eminent.     They  avail  themselves  with  naive  acuteness 
and  taste  of  the  special  properties  of  the  material.     But  none  of  their  performances 
excels    the  perfection  of   a  beautifully  polished    and  perforated  stone  hammer. 
Everything  which  they  produce  lacks  the  fine  beauty  of  perfect  finish,  and  more 
especially  proportion.     A  nation's  sports  are  a  valuable  evidence  of  its  mode  of 


Chains  made  of  walrus-teeth,  from  Aleutia.      (City  Museum,-  Frankfort  O.  M. ) 


76 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


life  and  view  of  life.  Many  gain  a  special  interest  from  the  fact  of  their  having 
spread  with  scarcely  perceptible  variations  over  very  wide  regions.  Any  one  who 
knows  the  multitude  of  the  games  in  which,  among  simple  races,  children  and 
adults  take  part  with  ever  fresh  pleasure,  and  considers  the  simplicity  of  many  of 
them,  cannot  but  remark  that  in  the  life  of  these  races  there  is  an  element  reminis- 
cent of  childhood  in  the  careless  squandering  of  time,  and  the  limited  demands 
made  on  life.  In  the  small  area  of  the  Solomon  Islands  and  Northern  New 
Hebrides,  including  the  Banks  Islands,  we  find  hide  and  seek,  prisoner's  base,  foot- 
ball, stump  and  ball,  games  akin  to  morra,  hoops,  exercises  in  spear-throwing  and 
archery.  When  the  harvest  has  been  reaped,  they  fly  kites  ;  and  in  connection 
with  the  yam  harvest  the  game  of  tika  is  eagerly  played  between  contending 
villages.  On  moonlight  nights,  the  villagers  go  round  the  circle  of  gossips,  hidden 
behind  a  screen,  and  making  their  friends  guess  at  their  identity. 


§  8.   INVENTION    AND    DISCOVERY 

Essential  characters  of  invention — Primitive  science — Finding  and  retaining — Difficulty  of  a  tradition  in  the 
lower  stages — How  inventions  get  forgotten — Pottery  in  Polynesia — Importance  of  individual  inventions  in 
primitive  conditions — 7a/a^Obscure  derivation  of  such  culture  as  is  possessed  by  "natural"  races — 
Examples  of  imitation  and  other  correspondences — No  race  is  whoU)'  without  external  relations — Ethno- 
graphic poverty  and  impoverishment — Distinctions  of  degree  in  evolution — Monbuttus — Curious  cases  of 
special  development — Kingsmill  Islands — Difficulty  of  determining  relative  degrees  of  culture. 

The  material    progress    of    mankind   rests  upon   an  ever-ideepening   and  widening 
study  of  natural   phenomena,  from  which   results  a  corresponding   increase   in   the 


Kaffir  fire-sticks,  for  producing  fire  by  friction.      One-fourth  real  size.      (Museum  of  the  Berlin  Mission.) 

wealth  of  means  at  a  man's  disposal  /or  his  own  emancipation,  and  for  the 
improvement  and  embellishment  of  his  life.  The  discovery  how  to  make  fire  by 
friction  was  an  act  of  the  intellect  which  in  its  own  degree  demanded  as  much 
thinking  power  as  the  invention  of  the  steam-engine.  The  inventor  of  the  bow  or 
the  harpoon  must  have  been  a  genius,  whether  his  contemporaries  thought  him  one 
or  not.  And  then  as  now,  whatever  intellectual  gains  were  due  to  natural  sugges- 
tions must  have  grown  up  in  the  individual  intellect,  in  order,  when  circumstances 
were  favourable,  to  make  its  way  to  the  minds  of  several  or  riiany  persons.  Only 
suggestions  of  a  lower,  less  developed  kind,  such  as  we  may  call  quite  Generally 
tones  of  mind,  appear  like  epidemics  in  many  simultaneously,  and  are  capable  as 
it  were  of  giving  their  tone  to  the  mental  physiognomy  of  a  race.      Intellectual 


INVENTION  AND  DISCOVERY  77 


games  are  individual  achievements,  and  the  history  of  even  the  simplest  discovery 
is  a  fragment  of  the  intellectual  history  of  mankind. 

When  primitive  man  was  brought  naked  into  the  world,  Nature  came  to  meet 
him  in  two  ways.  She  gave  him  the  materials  of  food,  clothing,  weapons,  and  so 
forth,  and  offered  him  suggestions  as  to  the  most  suitable  methods  of  turning  them 
to  account.  It  is  with  these  suggestions  that  we  have  now  to  concern  ourselves. 
In  invention,  as  in  all  that  is  spiritual  in  man,  the  external  world,  mirrored  in  his 
soul,  plays  a  part.  We  cannot  doubt  that  much  has  been  taken  from  it.  The 
agreement  between  type  and  copy  seems  very  close  when  we  find  the  tail  of  a 
gnu  or  eland  used  by  the  Bushmen  of  South  Africa,  just  as  it  was  by  its  first 
owner,  to  keep  off  the  flies  of  that  fly-abounding  region  ;  or  when  Peter  Kolb 
relates  how  the  Hottentots  look  only  for  such  roots  and  tubers  as  are  eaten  by 
the  baboons  and  other  animals.  When  we  come  to  consider  the  evolution  of 
agriculture,  we  shall  discover  many  other  cases  of  similar  suggestions  ;  justifying 
us  in  the  reflection  that  in  the  lower  stages  of  culture  man  is  nearer  to  the  beast, 
learns  from  it  more  easily,  and,  similarly,  has  a  larger  share  of  brute -instinct. 
Other  discoveries  go  back  to  the  earliest  observations  of  the  sequence  of  cause 
and  effect ;  and  with  the  course  of  discovery  the  beginnings  of  science  also  reach 
back  to  the  earliest  ages  of  mankind.  Some  natural  occurrence  strikes  a  man  ; 
he  wishes  to  see  it  repeated,  and  is  thus  compelled  to  put  his  own  hand  to  it. 
Thus  he  is  led  to  inquire  into  the  particulars  of  the  occurrence  and  its  causes. 

But  it  is  the  individual  alone  who,  in  the  first  instance,  makes  the  discovery 
and  profits  by  it.  More  is  required  if  it  is  to  become  an  addition  to  the  store  of 
culture  such  as  the  history  of  culture  can  take  into  account.  For  the  mode  in 
which  the  acquisitions  of  the  intellect  are  amassed  is  twofold.  First,  we  have  the 
concentrated  creative  force  of  the  individual  genius,  which  brings  one  possession 
after  another  into  the  treasury  of  mankind  ;  and  secondly,  the  diffusion  of  these 
among  the  masses,  which  is  a  preliminary  condition  of  their  preservation.  The 
discovery  which  the  individual  keeps  to  himself  dies  with  him  ;  it  can  survive 
only  if  handed  down.  The  degree  of  vitality  possessed  by  discoveries  depends, 
therefore,  upon  the  force  of  tradition  ;  and  this  again  upon  the  internal  organic 
interdependence  of  the  generations.  Since  this  is  strongest  in  those  classes  who 
either  have  leisure  or  are  led  by  their  calling  to  attend  to  intellectual  matters, 
even  in  their  most  primitive  form,  the  force  which  tends  to  preserve  what  the 
intellect  has  won  is  also  dependent  on  the  social  organisation.  And  lastly,  since 
a  store  of  intellectual  possession  has  a  stimulating  effect  upon  creative  minds, 
which  would  otherwise  be  condemned  to  be  always  beginning  anew,  everything 
which  strengthens  the  force  of  tradition  in  a  race  will  have  a  favourable  effect 
upon  the  further  development  of  its  store  of  ideas,  discoveries,  inventions.  Those 
natural  conditions,  therefore,  may  be  regarded  as  indirectly  most  especially 
favourable  to  intellectual  development,  which  affect  the  density  of  the  whole 
population,  the  productive  activity  of  individuals,  and  therewith  the  enrichment 
of  the  community.  But  the  wide  extension  of  a  race  and  abundant  possibilities 
of  commerce  are  also  operative  in  this  direction.  If  we  consider,  not  finding  only, 
but  the  preservation  of  what  has  been  found — by  diffusion  through  a  wide  sphere 
and  incorporation  with  the  permanent  stock  of  culture, — is  essential  to  invention, 
we  shall  comprehend  that  this  element  of  invention,  so  important  for  progress, 
will  not  attain  an  equally  effective  character  in  all  stages  of  civilization.     Every- 


78 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


thing  tends  to  limit  its 
effectiveness  in  the  lower 
stages,  for  the  lower  we 
go  in  civilization,  the  less 
is  the  interdependence  of 
men  kept  up ;  and  for 
this  reason  the  progress 
of  culture  in  the  other 
direction  acquires  an  ac- 
celerated pace. 

How  many  inventions 
of  men  may  have  been 
lost  in  the  long  ages  be- 
fore great  communities 
were  formed  !  Even  to- 
day how  many  do  we  see 
fallen  with  their  inventors 
into  oblivion,  or,  in  the 
most  favourable  case, 
laboriously  dug  up  again 
and  so  preserved  ?  And 
who  can  measure  the 
inertia  of  the  stubborn 
opposition  which  stands  in 
the  way  of  the  birth  of 
new  ideas  ?  We  may 
remember  Cook's  descrip- 
tion of  the  New  Zealanders 
in  the  report  of  his  second 
voyage  :  "  The  New  Zea- 
landers seem  perfectly 
content  with  the  scraps  of 
knowledge  which  they 
possess,  without  showing 
the  least  impulse  to  im- 
prove upon  them.  Nor 
do  they  show  any  parti- 
cular curiosity  either  in 
their  questions  or  their 
remarks.  Novelties  do 
not  surprise  them  as  much 
as  one  would  expect ;  nay, 
they  do  not  hold  their 
attention  for  an  instant." 
We  know  now  that  on 
the  remote  Easter  Island 
writing,  the  most  important  of  inventions,  was  generally  known, 
have  died  out  there  without  leaving  any  offspring. 


It  seems  to 


INVENTION  AND  DISCOVERY  T) 


What  a  vista  of  eternally  futile  starts  opens  when  we  think  of  this  mental 
immobility  and  this  lack  of  quickening  interdependence !  We  get  a  feeling  that 
all  the  sweat  which  the  struggle  after  new  improvements  has  cost  our  age  of 
inventions  is. but  a  drop  in  the  ocean  of  labours  wherein  the  inventors  of  primitive 
times  were  submerged.  The  germ  of  civilization  will  not  grow  in  every  soil. 
The  bulk  of  civilized  methods  which  a  race  is  capable  of  assimilating  is  in  direct 
proportion  to  its,  average  of  civilization.  Anything  that  is  offered  to  it  beyond 
this  is  only  received  externally,  and  remains  of  no  importance  to  the  life  of  the 
race,  passing  as  time  goes  on  into  oblivion  or  rigidity.  To  this  must  be  referred 
the  ethnographical  poverty  found  in  the  lower  strata  of  ethnographically  richer 
races. 

If  we  draw  conclusions  from  certain  acquisitions  of  culture  which  may  be  found 
among  a  people,  such  as  garden  plants,  domestic  animals,  implements,  and  the 
like,  to  its  contact  with  some  other  people,  we  may  easily  forget  this  simple  but 
important  circumstance.  Many  institutions  among  the  inhabitants  of  our  mountains 
fail  to  betray  the  fact  that  they  have  lived  for  ages  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  high 
civilization;  the  Bushmen  have  appropriated  astonishingly  little  of  the  more  copious 
store  of  weapons,  implements,  dexterity,  possessed  by  the  Bechuanas.  On  the 
one  side  the  stock  of  culture  progresses,  on  the  other  it  retrogrades  or  stands  still, 
a  condition  into  which  a  movement,  evidently  in  its  nature  not  strong,  easily  passes. 
This  is  an  instructive  phenomenon,  and  a  comparison  of  various  degrees  of  this 
stationariness  is  specially  attractive.  Any  one  who  starts  with  the  view  that  pottery 
is  a  very  primitive  invention,  less  remote  than  almost  any  other  from  the  natural 
man,  will  note  with  astonishment,  not .  in  Australia  only  but  in  Polynesia,  how  a 
talented  race,  in  the  face  of  needs  by  no  means  inconsiderable,  manages  to  get 
along  without  that  art.  And  when  he  finds  it  in  existence  only  in  Tonga  and 
the  small  Easter  Island  at  the  extreme  eastern  limit  of  Polynesia,  he  will  be  apt 
to  think  how  much  more  the  intercourse  between  lands  and  islands  has  contributed 
to  the  enrichment  of  men's  stock  of  culture  than  has  independent  invention.  But 
that  even  here  again  intercourse  is  very  capricious,  we  learn  from  the  absence  of 
this  art  among  the  Assiniboines  of  North  America,  next  door  to  the  Mandans, 
who  excel  in  it.  Here  we  learn  that  inventions  do  not  spread  like  a  prairie-fire, 
but  that  human  will  takes  a  hand  in  the  game  which,  not  without  caprice, 
indolently  declines  some  things  and  all  the  more  readily  accepts  others.  The 
tendency  to  stand  still  at  a  stage  that  has  been  once  reached  is  greater  in 
proportion  as  the  average  of  civilization  is  lower.  You  do  just  what  is  enough  and 
no  more.  Just  because  the  Polynesians  were  able  to  heat  water  by  putting  red' 
hot  stones  into  it,  they  would  never  have  proceeded  to  pottery  without  foreign  aid. 
We  must  beware  of  thinking  even  simple  inventions  necessary.  It  seems  far  more 
correct  to  credit  the  intellect  of  "  natural "  races  with  great  sterility  in  all  that  does 
not  touch  the  most  immediate  objects  of  life.  Migrations  may  also  have  given 
occasion  for  sundry  losses,  since  the  raw  material  often  occurs  only  in  limited 
quantity,  and  every  great  migration  causes  a  rift  in  tradition.  Tapa  plays  an  im- 
portant part  among  the  Polynesians,  but  the  Maoris  lost  the  art  of  its  manufacture. 
In  these  lower  stages  of  civilization  the  whole  social  life  is  much  more  dependent 
upon  the  rise  than  upon  the  loss  of  some  simple  invention  than  is  the  case  in  the 
higher.  The  nearer  life  stands  to  Nature,  the  thinner  the  layer  of  culture  in  which 
it  is  rooted,  the  shorter  the  fibres  which  it  strikes  down  to  the  natural  soil,  the 


8o  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

more  comprehensive,  the  further-reaching  every  change  in  that  soil  naturally  is. 
The  invention  of  the  way  to  manufacture  clothing,  whether  in  the  form  of  woven 
stuffs  or  of  beaten  bark,  is  surely  natural  and  yet  rich  in  results.  The  entire 
refinement  of  existence  among  the  natural  races  of  Polynesia,  resting  upon  clean- 
liness and  modesty,  and  sufficient  by  itself  to  give  them  a  high  place,  is 
inconceivable  without  the  inconspicuous  material  known  as  tapa.  Bark  is  con- 
verted into  a  stuff  for  clothing,  which  provides  not  only  a  plentiful  covering 
for  the  body  but  also  a  certain  luxury  in  the  frequent  change  it  allows,  a 
certain  taste  in  wearing  and  in  the  selection  of  colours  and  patterns,  and,  lastly, 
a  means  of  amassing  capital  by  preserving  stores  of  this  material  which  are  always 
convertible.  Think,  on  the  other  hand,  of  an  Eskimo's  skin  coat  or  a  Negress's 
leather  apron,  which  are  worn  through  successive  generations  and  laden  with  the 
dirt  of  them.  Tapa,  a  material  which  can  be  provided  in  quantities  without  much 
trouble,  naturally  represses  the  weaver's  art,  which  can  only  have  proceeded  by  a 
long  and  toilsome  road  from  plaiting.  In  the  lake-dwellings  there  are  products 
which,  with  equal  justice,  are  referred  to  both  one  and  the  other  form  of  work. 
This  suggests  the  relations  between  basket-weaving  and  pottery  ;  large  earthen- 
ware vessels  were  made  by  covering  baskets  with  clay.  There  is  no  need  on  this 
account,  with  William  H.  Holmes,  to  call  the  whole  art  of  pottery,  as  contrasted 
with  plaiting,  a  "  servile  art,"  but  this  outgrowth  is  instructive. 

The  fact  that  the  most  necessary  kinds  of  knowledge  and  dexterity  are  spread 
throughout  mankind,  so  that  the  total  impression  of  the  stock  of  culture  possessed 
by  the  "  natural "  races  is  one  of  a  fundamental  uniformity,  gives  rise  to  a  further 
feeling  that  this  scanty  stock  is  only  the  remains  of  a  larger  total  of  possessions 
from  which  all  that  was  not  absolutely  necessary  has  gradually  dropped  out. 
Or  can  we  suppose  that  the  art  of  producing  fire  by  friction  made  its  way  all 
alone  through  the  world,  or  the  art  of  making  bows  and  arrows  ?  To  discuss 
these  questions  is  important,  not  only  in  order  to  estimate  the  measure  of  the 
inventive  talent  possessed  by  natural  races,  but  also  to  obtain  the  right  perspective 
for  the  history  of  primitive  humanity,  for  it  must  be  possible  to  read  in  the  stock 
of  culture,  if  anywhere,  from  what  elements  and  by  what  ways  mankind  of  to-day 
has  become  what  it  is.  Now  if  we  pass  in  review  what  is  possessed  by  the  natural 
races  in  artifices,  implements,  weapons,  and  so  on,  and  deduct  what  is  and  has 
been  imported,  in  some  cases  already  to  a  large  extent,  by  means  of  trade  with 
modern  civilized  races,  we  are  inclined  to  form  a  high  conception  of  their  inventive 
talent.  But  what  guarantee  have  we  of  the  independent  discovery  of  all  these 
things  ?  Undoubtedly  before  there  were  any  relations  with  Europeans,  relations 
existed  with  other  races  which  reached  down  to  these  lower  strata,  and  thus 
many  a  crumb  must  have  fallen  here  from  the  richly  spread  tables  of  the  old 
civilizations  of  Egypt,  Mesopotamia,  India,  China,  and  Japan,  and  has  continued 
here  in  a  mutilated  shape  perhaps  quite  alien  to  the  original  uses  served  by  it. 
The  ethnographer  knows  cases  enough  of  such  borrowings ;  every  single  race 
shows  examples  of  them.  Nor  is  the  examination  of  their  nature  and  significance 
anything  new.  We  may  specially  recall  an  original  remark  of  Livingstone's 
which,  though  made  with  another  intention,  is  fairly  applicable  here :  "  The 
existence  of  various  implements  which  are  in  use  among  the  Africans  and  other 
partially  civilized  races,  points  to  the  communication  of  an  instruction  which 
must  have  proceeded  at  some  time  or  another  from  a  superhuman  being."     Think 


INVENTION  AND  DISCOVERY 


as  we  may  about  the  conclusion  of  this  remark,  its  main  point  is  fully  justified  as 
a  contradiction  of  the  widespread  assumption  that  everything  which  natural  races 
have  to  show  of  their  own  came  into  existence  in  the  place  where  it  is  now  seen, 
and  was  invented  by  those  races  themselves.  When  we  find  all  races  in  Africa, 
from  Moors  to  Hottentots,  producing  and  working  iron  ^fter  one  and  the  same 
method,  it  is  far  more  probable  that  this  art  reached  them  all  from  a  common 
source  than  that  it  was  independently  discovered  in  all  parts  alike.  At  one  time 
people  pointed  triumphantly  to  the  turkey  as  an  animal  which  had  been  inde- 
pendently domesticated  by  barbarous  races,  until  Spencer  Baird  discovered  in 
Mexico  the  ancestor  of  this  ill-tempered  sovereign  of  the  poultry-yard.  In  the 
matter  of  utensils,  borrowing  from  civilization  is  naturally  more  difficult  to  prove, 
since  these  do  not,  like  plants  and  animals,  bear  about  them,  however  obliterated, 
the  marks  of  their  origin.  But  may  not  the  Indian,  who  got  his  maize  from 
Mexico,  have  learnt  from  the  same  quarter  the  art  of  his  delicate  stone-work  ? 
Such  introduction,  together  with  its  consequence  of  the  widest  possible  propagation, 
must  seem  to  us  more  natural  than  the  independent  invention  of  one  and  the 
same  utensil,  or  one  and  the  same  touch  of  art  in  a  dozen  different  places.  Atten- 
tion has  been  quite  recently  called  to  the  fact  that  the  Solomon  Islanders  have 
bows  and  arrows,  while  the  inhabitants  of  New  Ireland  and  others  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood have  not,  and  people  were  quite  ready  to  credit  the  former  with  the 
invention  of  this  ingenious  weapon.  As  has  been  already  pointed  out,  people 
are,  in  this  matter,  wonderfully  inconsistent.  On  the  one  hand  the  natural  races 
are  put  down  to  the  level  of  the  brute,  on  the  other  hand  inventions  are  ascribed 
to  them  which  are,  at  least,  not  of  an  easy  kind.  One  is  always  too  apt  to  think 
of  invention  as  easy,  considering  only  the  difficulties  of  finding  out,  which  for  a 
brain  of  genius  are  small  ;  but  it  is  otherwise  with  the  retaining  of  what  has  been 
found  out.  In  some  cases  it  has  been  possible  to  penetrate  down  to  the  more  remote 
origin  of  apparently  quite  spontaneous  productions  of  "  natural  "  races.  Bastian 
has  compiled  a  list  of  cases  in  which  certain  elements  of  European  civilization 
have  been  formally  imitated  ;  a  good  instance  being  the  characteristic  Fijian  form 
of  club  copied  from  a  musket  of  the  last  century.  The  savages  thought  they  would 
have  the  dreaded  weapon  at  least  in  wood,  and  produced  a  club  remarkably  ill- 
adapted  to  its  proper  purpose.  A,  head-dress  used  in  the  New  Hebrides  is  a 
colossal  exaggeration  of  an  admiral's  cocked -hat.  The  remarkable  cross-bow 
used  by  the  Fans  is  more  to  the  purpose.  It  reached  the  Fans  of  the  interior  from 
the  Portuguese  discoverers  on  the  west  coast,  and  they  retained  the  pattern,  while 
on  the  coast  firearms  came  into  use,  as  in  Europe.  Now,  after  four  hundred  years, 
the  cross-bow  turns  up  again  ;  but  as  the  Fans  have  neither  the  patience  nor  the 
tools  to  fashion  a  lock,  they  slit  the  stock,  and  use  the  cross-bow  to  shoot  little 
poisoned  arrows  which  might  just  as  well  be  shot  from  a  light  long-bow. 

If  it  were  less  difficult  to  seize  the  manifestations  of  intellectual  life  among 
the  lower  races,  we  should  be  able  to  gather  a  much  richer  harvest  among  them. 
Indian  traces  run  through  the  religion  of  the  Malays,  and  extend  perhaps  to 
Melanesia  and  Polynesia.  We  find  such  striking  similarities,  especially  in  the 
cosmogonic  legends  of  Bushmen  and  Australians,  Polynesians,  and  North  Americans, 
that  nothing  but  tradition  is  left  to  explain  them.  So  in  the  domain  of  politics 
we  find  points  of  accord.  The  institutions  of.  Kazembe's  country,  as  described  by 
Lacerda  and  Livingstone,  or  Muata  Jamvo's,  as  reported  by  Pogge  and  Buchner, 

G 


82 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


remind  us  partly  of  India,  partly  of  ancient  Egypt.  In  the  domain  of  social  and 
political  conceptions  and  institutions,  the  coincidences  are  striking.  The  deeper 
we  search  into  these  matters,  the  more  convinced  we  are  of  the  correctness  of  an 
expression  used  by  Bastian  at  a  date  when  the  sharp  division  of  races  was  a 
gospel,  and  the  unity  of  mankind  was  scouted.  In  his  Journey  to  San  Salvador 
he  says  :  "  Even  to  the  islands  slumbering  on  the  bosom  of  the  Pacific,  ocean- 
currents  seem  to  have  driven  the  message  of  the  more  abstract  triumphs  of 
civilization  ;  perhaps  even  to  the  shores  of  the  American  continent."  We  may 
be  permitted  to  add  the  conclusion  that  no  one  understands  the  natural  races 
who  does  not  make  due  allowance  for  their  intercourse  and  connection,  often  dis- 
guised as  it  is,  with  each  other,  and  with  civilized  peoples.  There  is,  and  always 
has  been,  more  intercourse  between  them  than  one  would  suppose  from  a  super- 
ficial observation.  Thus,  long  before  the  Nile  route  was  opened 
to  traffic,  wares  of  European  origin,  especially  pearls,  made  their 
way  from  Darfour  by  Hofrat  el  Nahas,  even  to  the  Azandeh. 
Where  strong  resemblances  occur,  the  question  of  intercourse,  of 
communication  from  abroad,  should  always  be  raised  in  the  first 
instance  ;  in  many  cases  possibly  that  of  very  direct  intercourse. 
We  think  that  we  are  quite  justified  in  asking  whether  it  is  not 
by  fugitive  slaves  that  so  many  elements  of  African  civilization 
have  been  spread  through  South  America.  For  centuries  the 
Japanese  have  had  very  little  intercourse  with  the  races  of  the 
North  Pacific  ;  yet  it  may  be  that  we  ought  to  refer  to  some 
such  intercourse  as  this  (which,  in  truth,  not  only  enlarges,  but, 
as  time  goes  on,  always  tends  to  decompose)  the  wicker  armour 
worn  by  the  Chukchis,  so  like  Japanese  armour.  Thus,  however, 
races  formerly  depended  on  each  other ;  and  no  more  than  at 
present  was  there  ever  on  this  earth,  so  far  as  our  historical  know- 
ledge shows,  a  group  of  men  who  could  be  said  to  be  devoid  of 
relations  with  others.  Everywhere  we  see  agreements,  similarities, 
affinities,  radiating  out  till  they  form  a  close  network  over  the 
earth  ;  even  the  most  remote  islanders  can  only  be  understood 
when  we  take  into  account  their  neighbours,  far  and  near. 

These  most  remote  islands,  too,  show  how  indigenous  industries  always 
dwindle  where  European  or  American  manufactures  come.  When  Hamilton 
visited  Car  Nicobar  in  1790,  the  women  wore  a  kind  of  short  petticoat,  made  of 
tufts  of  grass  or  rushes  strung  in  a  row,  which  simply  hung  down  ;  now  they 
universally  cover  up  their  bodies  with  stuff  cloths.  Thus  a  century's  progress  has 
resulted  in  the  replacing  of  the  grass  petticoat  by  woven  materials.  Meanwhile, 
the  domestic  industry  perishes,  and  no  new  dexterity  arises  in  its  stead.  On  the 
lower  Congo  we  no  longer  find  the  bark-stuffs  and  fine  webs  which  Lopez  and 
other  travellers  of  the  sixteenth  century  prized  so  highly.  Where,  too,  is  the  art 
of  grinding  amber  and  obsidian, ,  which  produced  such  conspicuous  results  in 
ancient  Mexico  ?  or  the  goldsmith's  work  and  tapestry  of  the  old  Peruvians  ? 

For  estimating  the  importance  of  external  suggestion,  nothing  is  more  instruc- 
tive than  the  consideration  of  races  which  are  poorest  in  an  ethnographical  sense. 
Of  them  we  can  say  that  they  are  invariably  also  those  whose  intercourse  with 
others  is  scantiest.      Why  are  the  most  remote  races  at  the  extremities  of  the 


Human  figure  and 
jnedusa  in  walrus- 
ivory,  from  (?) 
Tahiti.  (Vienna 
Ethnograpiiical 
Museum. ) 


INVENTION  AND  DISCOVERY 


83 


continents  or  on  the  less  accessible  islands  the  most  destitute  ?  Ethnographic 
poverty  is  only  in  part  a  consequence  of  the  penury,  the  general  poverty,  which 
presses  on  a  people.  This  has  been  readily  recognised  in  the  case  of  many  races, 
as,  for  instance,  the  Australians,  whose  life  on  the  arid  steppes  of  their  continent, 
almost  destitute  of  useful  plants  and  animals,  is  one  of  the  poorest  and  most 
depressed  that  has  been  allotted  to  any  race  on  the  earth.  But  even  in  the 
most  favoured  northern  tracts  within  the  tropics,  they  are  almost  totally  devoid  of 
that  tendency  to  the  artistic  adornment  of  existence  which  flourishes  so  profusely 
among  their  Papuan  neighbours,  and  forms  the  luxury  of  barbarous  races.  In 
this  case  we  need  not  seek  far  for  the  causes  of  their  ethnographical  poverty. 
Every  glance  at  the  conditions  and  mode  of  these  people's  life  shows  how  sharp 
is  their  struggle  to  maintain  bare  existence,  but   it   also  shows   the   impoverishing 


Shell  and  bone  fish-hooks  from  Oceania,      The  larger  one  on  the  right  probably  of  North  American 
origin.      (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum.) 

effects  of  remoteness  from  the  great  streams  of  traffic.  The  out-of-the-way 
situation  of  Australia,  southern  South  America,  the  interior  of  South  Africa,  and 
eastern  Polynesia,  exercises  the  same  impoverishing  influence  everywhere  upon  the 
indigenous  races.  If  any  one  is  inclined  to  see  in  this  a  sort  of  contagion  of 
poverty,  referable  to  the  smaller  number  of  suggestions  offered  under  these 
conditions  by  Nature  to  the  mind,  and  especially  to  the  fancy,  he  must  beware  of 
hasty  conclusions.  Easter  Island,  though  small,  and  by  nature  poor,  is  ethno- 
graphically  rich  ;  and  hardly  any  barbarous  race  is  superior  in  artistic  develop- 
ment to  the  Eskimo. 

We  know  how  the  utensils  and  weapons  of  civilized  races  have  spread  as  it 
were  by  stages  and  continue  to  spread  to  races  which  previously  possessed  no 
notion  of  them.  When  Stanley  crossed  the  Dark  Continent,  on  his  first  remark- 
able journey  along  the  Congo,  the  last  point  where  firearms  were  seen  in  native 
hands  was  left  on  the  east  at  the  famous  market-town  of  Nyangwe.  He  came 
upon  them  again  to  the  westward  at  Nbenga,  6°  north  of  Nyangwe,  in  the  shape 
of  those  four  old  Portuguese  muskets,  ever  to  be  historical  as  the  first  sign  from 
which  the  party  learned,  at  the  most  critical  moment  of  their  journey,  "  that  we  had 
not  missed  the  way,  and  that  the  great  stream  really  reached  the  sea."  Nyangwe 
and  Nbenga  are  on  the  borders  of  an  area  of  200,000  to  250,000  square  miles 
wherein  firearms,  with  which  the  coasts  of  Africa  have  roared  these  four  hundred 
years,  were  a  few  years  ago  unknown.      It  is  true  that  other  things  have  been 


84 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


I  if 


t 


more  quickly  diffused,  as  for  instance  those  American  products 
\yhich  were  not  brought  here  till  the  sixteenth  century — tobacco, 
maize,  and  potatoes.  But  they  too  have  travelled  by  stages  ; 
the  Damaras  have  only  come  to  know  tobacco  within  the  last 
few  dozen  years. 

To    this    fact  of  the    importance  of  intercourse    we    must 

ascribe  the  striking  uni- 
formity of  motive  seen 
in  productions  of  ethno- 
graphical interest  even 
in  rich  districts  ;  as 
when  the  island-world 
of  Melanesia  and  Poly- 
nesia, so  far  as  concerns 
the  distribution  of  uten- 
sils and  weapons,  pre- 
sents the  picture  of  a 
meadow  in  which  the 
same  main  elements 
spring  up  everywhere  in 
the  vegetation,  thinner 
in  one  place,  thicker  in 
another,  here  showing 
better,  here  less  good 
condition,  and  only 
rarely  mingled  with 
such  peculiar  growths 
as  wonderfully  animate 
the  picture.  And  just 
as  amid  the  monotonous 
herbage  on  the  barren 
soil  of  a  steppe,  we 
often  suddenly  see  one 
plant  above  the  rest  un- 
fold itself  in  luxuriance, 
so  is  it  here.  The  in- 
tellect of  races,  torpid  as 
it  is  in  the  matter  of 
following  up  what  it  has  got,  suddenly  receives  from  some  side 
or  other  an  impulse  towards  freer  unfolding.  It  is  well  worth 
while  to  study  first  these  isolated  developments,  even  in  the 
grotesque.  It  is  interesting  too  to  see  at  what  manifold  forms 
the  people  of  small  islands  in  Polynesia  have  arrived  in  a  set  of 
fish-hooks,  through  their  devotion  to  fishing  ;  or  how  others,  by 
dint  of  a  consistent  progress  in  a  definite  direction,  have  appro- 
priated some  remarkable  style  of  weapon,  demanding  much 
industry  and  ingenuity.  The  art  of  fitting-up  weapons  with 
sharks'  teeth,  to  such  an  extent  that  one  might  suppose  one 


I.  •« 


Weapons  set  with  shark's  teeth,   from  the  Gilbert 
Islands.      (Munich  Ethnographical  Museum.) 


INVENTION  AND  DISCOVERY 


85 


constant 

an  area 

weapons 


had  to  do  with  a  people  of  no  small  numbers  and  strength,  living  in 
war,  reached  its  highest  point  in  the  Gilbert  or  Kingsmill  Islands  with 
of  185  square  miles  and  a  population  of  not  more  than  35,000.  These 
surpass  in  gruesomeness  those  of  any 
other  race  in  Polynesia,  and  the 
equipment  which  corresponds  to  them 
is  brought  to  a  finish  that  we  find 
nowhere  else  but  in  Japan  and  New 
Guinea.  Thus  under  uniformity  of 
fundamental  idea  almost  every  island- 
group  conceals  its  own  more  or  less 
perfected  special  features  ;  even  if  it 
be  only  that  invariable  little  human 
figure,  easily  overlooked,  found  on  all 
Tongan  carved-work.  Among  con- 
tinental races  such  features  naturally 
are  more  limited  in  their  appearance. 
But  even  here,  every  circle  of  culture, 
however  narrow,  has  its  own  little 
peculiarities,  which  establish  them- 
selves with  a  certain  consistency  in 
the  niost  various  domains.  Just  as  among  the  West  Africans  we  can  point  to 
the  predilection  for  representing  what  is  ugly,  as  a  characteristic  of  this  kind,  so 


Carved  and  painted  figure  from  Dahomey. 
Ethnographical  Museum. ) 


Zanza,  a  musical  instrument  used  over  a  great  part  of  Central  and  South  Africa. 

among  the  forest-negroes  we  have  the  frequent  employment  of  banana-leaves  in 
the  place  of  leather,  hide,  or  stuff — a  theme  upon  which  the  Monbuttus  play 
endless  variations.  This  race  offers  at  the  same  time  an  interesting  example  of 
a  general  high-development  of  industry  under  favourable  conditions.  When  the 
storms   of  the  period  passed  harmless  round  a  peaceful  oasis,  as  was  once  the 


86 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


case  with  Monbuttuland,  the  rich  soil  of  wealth  in  material  and  natural  ability- 
allowed  a  fine  flower  to  expand  ;  destined  however  to  a  short  existence.  Its 
fame  spread  far  and  wide  in  Africa.  The  actual  discovery  of  the  Monbuttus  by 
Schweinfurth  was  preceded  by  rumours,  reaching  even  to  Europe,  not  only  of 
their  brown  colour,  but  of  their  high  degree  of  civilization  ;  and  that  traveller 
himself  reports  that  even  in  the  district  of  the  Bahr-el-Ghazal  he  gathered  from 
the  conversation  of  the  ivory-traders  how  they  were  looked  upon  as  a  peculiar 
and  distinguished  people.     But,  above  all,  the  cleverness  of  the  people  in  the 

repair  of  warlike  weapons 
and  peaceful  utensils  is 
highly  esteemed.  The  high 
position  which  the  negroes 
of  Africa  hold  in  the  manu- 
facture of  the  most  varied 
musical  instruments  is  quite 
a  unique  phenomenon,  and 
has  provided  endless  ma- 
terial for  eulogistic  descrip- 
tions. Yet  with  all  this  the 
industry  of  the  Monbottus 
always  remains  a  negro-  in- 
dustry, often  applied  to  the 
same  themes  as  we  find 
among  the  Nile  negroes 
and  the  Kaffirs.  One  of 
the  most  difficult  tasks  we 
can  undertake  is  when,  as 
here,  we  have  to  define  a 
gradation  in  the  degree  of 
perfection  reached  by  any 
branch  of  human  activity, 
and  yet  at  the  same  time 
such  tasks  are  among  those 
that  can  best  be  justified  if 
any  genealogical  conclusion 
difference  in  the  develop- 


Fan  warrior  with  crossbow.      (After  Dii  Chaillu. ) 


is    to    be  drawn    from   this  gradation.      We   notice 

ment  of  shipbuilding  between  two  races  dwelling  so  near  each  other  as  the 
Fijians  and  Tongans  ;  the  latter,  of  Polynesian  descent,  in  this  matter  surpassing 
to  a  noteworthy  extent  the  Fijians,  who  are  to  be  reckoned  among  Melanesians. 
The  difference  is  not  great,  but  very  important,  since  it  contributes  to  the  confirma- 
tion of  our  view  that  the  Melanesians,  who  have  been  longer  established,  received 
the  high  development  of  their  shipbuilding  and  navigation  from  the  later  arrived 
Polynesians,  and  not  vke-versd.  Yet  it  is  obviously  always  difficult  to  judge  with 
certainty  in  such  a  case,  all  the  more  so  that  a  race  superior  in  general  culture 
may  in  the  matter  of  individual  points  of  knowledge  and  knack  be  behind  some 
who  on  the  whole  belong  to  a  lower  stage.  The  superiority  in  smith's  work  of 
the  Djurs  over  the  Nubians,  or  the  manifest  advantage  which  the  Musgus  possess 
as  agriculturists  over  their  Soudanese  masters,  appears  an  anomaly.     The  clever- 


AGRICULTURE  AND  CATTLE-BREEDING  87 

ness  of  the  negroes  in  both  thefee  directions  has  astonished  even  Europeans.  If  the 
facts  were  not  so  clear,  any  one  would  be  predisposed  to  ascribe  to  people  like  the 
Arabs  or  Borneans,  who  in  many  other  respects  possess  so  superior  a  civilization, 
the  education  of  the  negroes  to  the  excellence  which  they  have  attained  in  these 
arts.  But  the  very  fact  that  the  Arabs  had  something  to  learn  from  the  negroes 
in  agriculture  and  house-building  testifies  to  the  antiquity  in  Africa  of  an  indigenous 
semi-civilization  based  upon  agriculture. 

It  is  quite  wrong  to  believe  that  we  do  not  meet  with  division  of  labour  before 
reaching  a  somewhat  advanced  stage  of  economic  development :  Central  Africa 
has  its  villages  of  blacksmiths,  nay,  of  smiths  who  only  make  throwing-knives  ; 
New  Guinea  its  potter  villages  ;  North  America  its  finishers  of  arrowheads.  Hence 
arise  those  remarkable  social  and  political  groins  which  from  guilds  become  castes, 
and  from  castes  privileged  classes  in  a  race.  Hunting-races,  who  stand  towards 
the  agriculturist  in  a  mutual  relation  of  traffic  in  products,  are  scattered  with 
special  frequency  about  Africa.  Besides  these  specialised  activities  there  are 
others  distributed  among  those  people  who  practise  their  art  only  occasionally  as 
need  requires.  The  form  and  fashion  of  their  work  therefore  often  appears  in  the 
shape  of  a  busy  idleness.  A  man  who  has  just  then  nothing  better  to  do  polishes 
a  great  trochus  for  an  arm  band,  or  files  some  other  kind  of  shell  for  a  finger 
ring,  or  prefers  to  do  the  engraved  work  on  a  club  to  which  he  has  for  years 
past  devoted  his  leisure.  This  habit  of  working  with  the  most  liberal  expenditure 
of  time,  and  quite  at  ease,  goes  far  to  explain  the  perfection  of  the  things  produced. 
No  doubt  they  are  for  the  most  part  articles  for  immediate  use  and  not  for  traffic, 
and  trade  profits  little  by  this  limited  though  persevering  labour ;  whereas  an 
active  trade  is  closely  connected  with  the  industries  mentioned  above. 


§  9.  AGRICULTURE  AND  CATTLE-BREEDING 

Origin  of  agriculture — First  stages — Limitation  of  nature — Breeding  animals — Taming  animals — Influence 
of  cattle-breeding  upon  national  destiny — Nomadism — Influence  of  agriculture — Low  place  taken  by 
agriculture  among  "natural"  races — Food  and  feeding. 

In  view  of  man's  profound  dependence  on  Nature,  none  of  the  suggestions  which 
she  ofi'ers  to  him  will  sooner  prove  beneficial  than  those  which  tend  to  modify  that 
dependence  by  so  far  as  possible  placing  under  his  own  control  the  bonds  which 
link  him  to  the  rest  of  the  animated  world.  The  way  to  this  lies  inthe  permanent 
appropriation  by  means  of  tillage  and  breeding  of  useful  plants  and  animals. 

Doubtless  there  never  was  a  time  when  man  could,  without  trouble,  acquire 
food,  shelter,  livelihood,  by  drawing  upon  Nature.  Nature  nowhere  brings  the 
food  to  his  mouth,  nor  roofs  his  hut  adequately  over  his  head.  Even  the 
Australian  who,  in  order  to  get  his  victuals,  does  no  more  than  prepare  a  sharp 
or  spade-ended  stick  to  grub  roots,  or  chop  nicks  in  the  trees  with  his  axe  to 
support  his  feet  in  climbing,  or  make  weapons,  fish-spear,  net,  or  hook,  or  traps 
for  smaller  animals,  pitfalls  for  larger — even  he  must  take  some  trouble,  and  that 
not  entirely  bodily,  to  help  himself.  Even  in  his  case  the  various  artifices  by 
which  he  manages  to  exploit  what  Nature  freely  gives  indicate  a  certain  develop- 


88 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


ment  of  the  faculties.  Nor  does  this  go  on  regardless  of  rights  and  laws.  The 
Australians,  like  all  other  hunting  races,  even  the  Eskimo,  are  bound  to  definite 
districts.  It  is  only  within  their  own  hunting-grounds  that  they  shift  their 
habitation  according  to  the  time  of  year  and  the  supply  of  game. 

It  is,  however,  but  a  poorly  productive  capital  that  is  invested  in  all  these 
dexterities  and  contrivances,  which  have  only  a  momentary  use,  and  from  which 
no  permanent  gains  in  the  way  of  culture  can  accrue.  From  this  situation, 
dependent  as  it  is,  and  for  that  very  reason  easy,  man  raises  himself  to  a  higher 
stage  by  engaging  Nature  in  certain  directions  to  more  durable  performance.  To  - 
this  shaking-up  and  awakening,  want  is  more  favourable  than  abundance.  In 
many  respects  Nature  comes  to  his  aid,  having  supplied  various  countries  very 
variously  with  crops  which  can  be  made  available  for  agriculture.  We  may. 
regard  as  especially  favourable  those  regions  where  there  is  a  marked  difference 
in  the  seasons.  Nature  at  one  time  emerging  in  the  fullest   creative  vigour,  at 

another  lying  dead  and  be- 
numbed, as  in  the  steppes. 
Some  steppe  regions  con- 
tain by  no  means  a  small 
supply  of  food  crops  ;  for 
in  the  effort  to  hoard  nutri- 
ment and  moisture  for  the 
future  germ  during  the  dry 
season.  Nature  has  stored 
in  grains,  tubers,  bulbs,  and 
fruits  exactly  what  man  can 
best  use.  These  countries  >. 
then  offer  him  not  only  the 
inducement  to  store  up  and 
put  in  barns,  but,  at  the 
same   time    the   most    suit- 


Our  varieties  of  crops  must  come  in  great  measure 


Stick  used  by  Bushmen  in  digging  roots,  and  stone  weights  for  the  same. 
( Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology. ) 

able  growths  for  the  purpose, 
from  these  regions. 

When  man  sets  to  work  to  add  something  from  his  own  resources  to  what 
Nature  does  for  him,  a  simple  solution  of  the  problem  lies  in  an  attempt  to  bottle 
up  as  it  were  the  sources  of  his  food  supply.  Even  now  many  of  those 
Australian  races  whom  we  regard  as  standing  on  the  lowest  step  of  civilization, 
•strictly  prohibit  the  pulling-up  of  plants  which  have  edible  fruit,  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  birds'  nests.  They  are  content  simply  to  let  Nature  work  for  them  only 
taking  thought  not  to  disturb  her.  Wild  bees'  nests  are  often  emptied  with'  such 
regularity  that  a  kind  of  primitive  bee-keeping  grows  up.  So  with  other  animals  ■ 
man  allows  them  to  lay  up  the  provision  which  he  subsequently  takes  away,  and 
thus  IS  led  in  another  direction  to  the  verge  of  cultivation.  Drege  instances  the 
case  of  Arthratherum  brevifolium,  a  grain-bearing  grass  in  Namaqua-land,  the 
seed  of  which  the  Bushmen  take  from  the  ants. 

Here  Nature  frames  a  check  for  man,  and  teaches  him  thrift.  On  the  other 
side,  the  tendency  to  settlement  is  encouraged.  Where  large  provision  of  fruits 
IS  found  whole  tribes  come  at  the  gathering  time  from  all  sides,  and  remain  as 
long  as  the  food  lasts.      Thus  to  this  day  the  Zanderillos  of  Mexico  come  to  the 


AGRICULTURE  AND   CATTLE-BREEDING 


sandy  lowlands  of  the  Coatzacoalco  when  the  melons  are  ripe  ;  or  the  Ojibbeways 

assemble  round  the   marshes   where  the   Zizania,  or  water-rice,  grows  ;    or  the 

Australians    hold    a    kind    of    harvest    festivity    in    the    neighbourhood    of    the 

marsiliaceous  plants  which  serve  them  for  grain.     Thus  on  two  sides  the  barriers 

of  savage  nature  are  broken  down.     The  son  of  the  desert  is  beginning  to  look 

ahead,  and  is  on  the  way 
,  to  become  settled.     From 

this    stage    to    the    great 

epoch  -  making      discovery 

that  he   must  commit  the 

seed  to  the  earth  in  order 

to     stimulate     Nature    to 

richer  performance,  may  in 

point  of   time   have   been 

far,  but   as  we  think  of  it 

the    step    does    not    seem 

long. 

The      beginnings       of 

cattle  -  breeding   show   yet 

further  how  man  succeeded 

in    knitting    an    important 

part    of    Nature    with    his 

own  fortunes.  The  roam- 
ing barbarian,  who  for  cer- 
tain periods  is  quite  away 

from  mankind,  tries  to  get 

from  Nature  either  what  is 

most  like  himself,  or  what 

seems  less  likely  to  make 
him  conscious  of  his  own 
weakness  and  smallness. 
Now  the  animal  world, 
though  separated  by  a  deep 
gulf  from  man  of  to-day, 
includes,  in  its  gentler  and 
more  docile  members,  the 
natural  qualities  with  which 
he  likes  best  to  associate 
himself.  The  delight  which  Indians,  or  Dyaks,  or  Nile-negroes  take  in  taming  wild 
animals  is  well  known.  Their  huts  are  full  of  monkeys,  parrots,  and  other  playmates. 
It  may  be  that  the  strong  impulse  to  companionship  which  exists  in  man  may  have 
had  more  to  do  with  the  first  effective  step  towards  acquiring  domestic  animals  than 
any  eye  to  the  use  to  be  made  of  them.  Thus  we  find,  no  less  among  the  lowest 
races  of  existing  mankind  than  in  the  remains  of  civilization  anterior  to  the  intro- 
duction of  domestic  animals  and  cultivated  plants,  the  dog  as  the  sole  permanent 
companion  ;  and  his  usefulness  is  limited  enough.^    Generally,  indeed,  it  is  difficult 

■"  [May  not  his  use  in  hunting,  which  is  considerable,  have  been  discovered  by  men  in  the  hunting-stage  of 
development  ?] 


Loango  negress  at  field-work.     (From  a  photograph  by  Dr.  Falkenstein. ) 


9°  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

to  draw  any  certain  conclusion  from  the  purpose  which  an  animal  serves  in  our 
civilization,  as  to  that  for  which  man  first  associated  him  with  himself.  In  Africa 
and  Oceania  the  dog  is  used  for  food.  We  may  suppose  that  the  horse  and  the 
camel  were  in  the  first  instance  tamed,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  their  speed 
as  for  the  milk  of  their  females.  A  certain  friendship,  even  in  more  civilized 
countries,  attaches  the  shepherd  to  the  members  of  his  flock.  Thus  cattle-farming 
is  a  pursuit  which  arouses  more  enthusiasm  than  agriculture.  It  is  more  often 
the  men's  work,  and  exercises  a  far  deeper  influence  on  all  private  and  public 
relations.  Nowhere  in  Africa  do  the  fruits  of  the  field  form  to  the  same  extent 
as  the  herds  the  basis  of  life,  the  source  of  pleasure,  the  measure  of  wealth,  the 
means  of  acquiring  all  other  desirable  articles,  especially  women  ;  lastly  even 
currency,  as  when  pecus  gave  its  name  to  pecunia.  Many  a  race  has  carried  this 
identification  of  its  existence  with  its  favourite  animal  to  a  dangerous  excess. 
Even  when  their  stage  of  culture  is  well  advanced  these  cattle-farming 
peoples  suffer  from  the  narrow  basis  in  which  their  livelihood  rests.  The  Basutos 
are,  all  things  considered,  the  best  branch  of  the  great  Bechuana  stock,  but  the 
theft  of  their  cattle  alone  was  enough  to  reduce  them  to  impotence.  Similarly  the 
rinderpest  of  recent  years  has  ruined  the  Masai  and  Wagogo. 

But  the  great  influence  which  cattle-breeding  produces  upon  a  race  is  to  make  it 
restless.  Pastoral  life  and  nomad  life  are  practically  synonymous.  Even  our  own 
alp-system,  with  its  changes  from  valley  to  mountain  pastures,  is  a  fragment  of 
nomadism.  Pastoral  life  requires  wide  spaces,  and  agrees  with  the  restless' tendencies 
of  the  more  forcible  races.  The  desert  is  preferred  to  the  fertile  country,  as  more 
spacious.  The  Rhenish  missionaries  had  specially  to  undertake  the  task  of 
inducing  some  of  the  Namaqua  tribes  to  settle  on  fertile  oases.  How  little  nomads 
care  to  utilise  Nature  more  thoroughly  we  may  learn  from  the  fact  that  as  a  rule 
they  hoard  no  provision  for  the  winter.  In  the  country  about  Gobabis  on  the 
Nosob  River,  Chapman  found  the  grass  growing  a  yard  high,  and  so  thick  that 
it  would  have  been  easy  to  make  hay  in  abundance ;  but  as  a  rule  the  Namaquas 
allowed  it  to  be  burnt  without  attempting  to  use  it.  This  sort  of  indifference 
tends  to  increase  the  contrast  between  nomadism  and  agriculture,  and  assumes 
the  character  of  a  great  obstacle  to  civilization.  Prjewalski,  in  his  account  of  his 
first  journey,  has  described  this  boundary,  the  boundary  of  both  Nature  and  culture, 
between  steppe  and  farm  land,  between  "  the  cold  desert  plateau  and  the  warm, 
fertile,  and  well-watered  plain  of  China,  intersected  by  mountain-chains,"  as  marked 
with  wonderful  sharpness.  He  agrees  with  Ritter  that  this  question  of  situation  L 
is  what  decides  the  historic  fortunes  of  races  which  inhabit  countries  closely 
bordering  on  each  other.  When  he  enters  the  Ordos  country — that  steppe  region, 
so  important  in  history,  which  lies  in  the  bend  of  the  upper  Hoangho, — he  says  of 
the  races  in  those  parts  :  "  Dissimilar  as  they  are,  both  in  mode  of  life  and  in  char-  ^ 
acter,  they  were  destined  by  Nature  to  remain  alien  to  each  other,  and  in  a  state 
of  mutual  hatred.  To  the  Chinese,  a  restless  nomad  life,  full  of  privation,  was 
inconceivable  and  despicable ;  the  nomad  looked  with  contempt  at  the  life  of  his  agri- 
cultural neighbour  with  all  its  cares  and  toils,  and  esteemed  his  own  savage  freedom 
the  greatest  happiness  on  earth.  This  is  the  actual  source  of  the  distinction  in 
character  between  the  races  :  the  laborious  Chinese,  who  from  time  immemorial 
has  attained  to  a  comparatively  high  and  very  peculiar  civilization,  always  avoided 
war,  and  looked  on  it  as  the  greatest  misfortune  ;    while  on  the  other  hand  the 


AGRICULTURE  AND   CATTLE-BREEDING 


91 


active  and  savage  inhabitant  of  the  Mongolian  desert,  hardened  against  all 
physical  consequences,  was  ever  ready  for  raiding  and  reiving.  If  he  failed  he 
lost  but  little,  while  in  the  event  of  success  he  secured  the  wealth  accumulated  by 
the  labour  of  several  generations.'' 

Here  we  have  the  contrast  between  the  most  characteristically  nomad  race 
and  the  most  sedentary  agriculturists, — a  contrast  with  whose  historical  results  in 
many  gradations  we  shall  meet  as  we  go  along,  in  the  chapters ,  of  this  book 
which  describe  races.  Only  we  must  not  forget  that  sedentary  life  in  this  degree 
is  found  in  a  race  of  ancient  civilization.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  "  natural  "  races. 
When  we  consider  the  position  of  agricultural  barbarians,  we  shall  often  no  doubt 
attach  less  weight  to  the  difference,  in  other  respects  of  so  much  ethnographic 
importance,  between  nomadic  and  settled  races  ;  for  what  is  the  significance  of 
a  sedentary  mode  of  life  if  its  great  civilizing  advantage,  continuity,  and  security 
of  life,  and  if  possible  of  progress,  is 
taken  out  of  it?  As  a  matter  of 
fact  even  the  best  cultivators  among 
the  African  races  are  astonishingly 
movable  ;  and  the  majority  of  villages, 
even  of  the  smaller  races,  seldom  re- 
main for  many  generations  in  the 
same  spot.  Thus  the  distinction  be--' 
tween  pastoral  and  agricultural  life 
becomes  much  smaller.  The  African 
Negro  is  the  finest  agriculturist  of  all ' 
"  natural  "  races,  except  perhaps  some 
Malayan  tribes,  as,  say,  the  Battaks 
of  Sumatra.  He  contends  with  a 
luxuriant  nature,  fells  trees,  and  burns 
the  coppice,  to  make  room  for  the  plough.  Round  the  hut  of  a  Bongo  or  a  Musgu 
you  will  find  a  greater  varietjf  of  garden  plants  than  in  the  fields  and  gardens  of 
a  German  village.  He  grows  more  than  he  requires,  and  preserves  the  surplus  in 
granaries  above  or  under  the  ground.  But  the  force  of  the  soil  and  the  man  is  not' 
utilised  to  the  full.  It  is  a  small  cultivation,  a  kind  of  gardening.  Codrington's 
expression,  "  horticultural  people,"  used  by  him  of  the  Melanesians,  may  be  applied 
to  many  other  "  natural "  races.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  the  man  does  not  in 
many  cases  devote  himself  wholly  to  agriculture,  imperfect  tools  tend  to  per- 
petuate the  lower  stage.  The  women  and  children,  with  the  unpractical  hoes 
shown  in  our  illustrations,  do  no  more  than  scratch  the  surface.  The  plough,  not 
to  mention  the  harrow,  has  nowhere  become  customary  among  genuinely  bar- 
barous peoples ;  manuring,  except  for  the  ashes  of  the  burnt  brushwood,  just  as 
little.      One  much  more  often  comes  across  terracing  and  artificial  irrigation. 

Agriculture,  limited  in  the  tropics  by  the  hostility  of  the  forces  of  Nature,  is 
equally  so  in  the  temperate  zones  by  the  lesser  fertility  of  the  soil,  and  the  less 
favourable  climate.  It  was  never  carried  on  here  to  the  same  extent  as  in  the 
tropics,  but  rather  formed  a  subsidiary  branch  of  economy  ;  it  fell  mainly  into 
the  hands  of  the  women,  and  was  a  provision  only  for  the  utmost  need.  In  con- 
trast to  the  wide  diffusion  which  newly-imported  plants  obtained  among  the 
Africans,  it  is  significant  that  the   New  Zealanders,  though  they  were  from  the 


Iron  hoe  from  Kordofan.      The  blade  is  also  used  as  cur- 
rency— one-eighth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection.) 


92 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


first  very  fond  of  potatoes,  never  planted  any  of  their  own  free  will,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  grubbed  up  almost  the  whole  of  the  ground  which  Captain  Furneaux 
had  tilled  for  their  benefit.  Still,  it  is  just  here  that,  with  persistence,  agriculture 
renders  possible  higher  developments  than  cattle-farming  can  do.  It  is  steadier, 
and  forces  on  a  man  the  wholesome  habit  of  labour.  In  Mexico  and  Peru  it  is  ^ 
followed  by  the  accumulation  of  capital,  and  the  development  of  industry  and 
trade  ;  and  therewith  by  the  occasion   for  a   fuller  organisation   of  social   ranks. 

European  cultivation  is  an  entirely  new  system  ;  apart ' 
from  its  more  effective  implements  and  methods,  it  pro- 
ceeds on  broader  lines.  It  has  abandoned  the  gardening 
style  possessed  by  the  agriculture  of  Negroes  and  Poly- 
nesians, even  by  that  of  the  industrious  peoples  of  east 
and  south  Asia. 

This  kind  of  agriculture  does  not  make  the  daily 
bread  secure.  Even  the  most  active  cultivators  in  Africa 
have  to  go  without  security  against  changes  of  luck.  The 
behaviour  of  the  elements  cannot  be  reckoned  upon. 
Drought  especially  does  not  spare  these  tropical  Paradises; 
and  famine  often  forms  a  scourge  of  the  population  in  the 
most  fertile  regions.  This  alone  is  sufficient  to  prevent  - 
these  races  from  passing  a  certain  line,  beyond  which  their 
development  to  a  higher  civilization  is  alone  possible.  AlK 
the  good  of  a  good  year  is  trodden  out  by  a  famine  year 
with  its  results  of  cannibalism  and  the  sale  of  children. 
In  the  tropics,  too,  damp  makes  the  storage  of  provisions 
difficult.  In  Africa,  again,  the  devastation  of  ants  and 
weevils  makes  it  hard  to  keep  the  chief  crop,  millet,  till 
the  next  harvest.  However  much  they  plant,  and  how-- 
ever  plentiful  the  harvest  turns  out,  everything  must  be 
consumed  in  the  year.  This  again  is  one  reason  why  the 
negroes  brew  so  much  beer.  Herein,  however,  whatever  ^ 
may  be  the  fault  of  the  climate,  undoubtedly  lies  one  of 
the  imperfections  whereby  agriculture  will  necessarily  be 
beset  among  a  race  in  whose  customs  foresight  and  en- 
durance are  hardly  developed,  and  are  incapable  of  linking 
the  activities  of  individual  persons  and  individual  days  with  a  strong  thread  of 
necessary  interdependence.  And  here,  too,  human  foes,  those  "  communists  of  - 
nature  "  who  equalise  all  property,  take  good  care  that  the  steady  prosperity  of 
agriculture  shall  not  create  too  deep  a  gulf  between  it  and  nomadism. 

In  the  matter  of  food,  "  natural  "  races,  even  when  they  carry  on  agriculture,  ^'■ 
strive  with  avidity  to  get  animal  adjuncts.  Contrary  to  our  physiological  notions, 
fat  and  blood  are  consumed  in  quantities  even  by  purely  tropical  races,  like  the 
Polynesians  ;  and  it  is  just  in  these  things  that  gluttony  is  practised.  The 
nearest  approach  to  vegetarianism  is  made  by  the  rice-planting  peoples  of  east 
Asia  and  the  banana-planting  negroes  of  the  forest,  as  formerly  by  the  civilized 
races  of  America.  The  races  of  the  far  north  eat,  no  doubt,  more  than  we  suppose 
of  wild  plants  ;  but  they  rely  especially  on  the  fat  and  flesh  of  sea-mammals. 
Some  nomad  groups  support  themselves  with  superstitious  exclusiveness  on  meat  "^ 


Hoe  or  gnibbing-axe  of  turtle- 
bone,  from  the  Mortlock 
Islands.     (British  Museum.) 


CLOTHING  AND   ORNAMENT  93 

and  milk.  Roots  are  eagerly  sought.  Salt  is  liked  in  all  parts  of  the  earth,  and 
the  fondness  for  meat  and  blood  is  based  in  some  measure  on  the  craving  for  it. 
By  rapid  and  thorough  roasting  the  salts  of  the  meat-juices  are  rendered  more 
highly  serviceable.  Every  race  in  all  parts  of  the  earth  has  hit  upon  some  means 
of  enjoying  caffein  compounds  and  alcohol.  Tobacco  is  not  the  only  narcotic 
herb  that  is  smoked.  The  methods  of  chewing  betel  and  coca  are  strikingly 
alike.     The  knowledge  of  many  poisons  has  come  to  civilized  races  from  barbarians. 


§   lo.  CLOTHING  AND  ORNAMENT 

Complete  nudity  nowhere  found  as  a  regular  custom — Caprice  in  the  matter  of  clothing  and  non-clothing — 
Better  clothing  is  no  absolute  indication  of  higher  culture — Fashion — Clothing  begins  as  ornament — 
Natural  clothing  materials — Climate  has  little  influence  on  clothing — Example  of  the  Fuegians — Eskimos 
— Ornament  found  everywhere — Similarity  of  principle  in  ornament — Ornament  and  weapons — Mutilations 
—  Difference  of  ornament  according  to  sex  —  Material  of  ornament — Ornament  and  trade — Precious 
metals — Imitation  pearls — Cleanliness. 

We  have  heard  tell  of  races  to  whom  clothing  is  unknown  ;  but  it  must  be  said 
that  the  few  cases  of  this  for  which  there  is  good  evidence  are  exceptions  that 
have  arisen  under  such  special  conditions  as  only  to  establish  the  rule.  If, 
however,  we  are  to  discover  the  principles  which  underlie  the  usage  generally,  the 
first  thing  required  is  to  come  to  an  understanding  as  to  what  we  mean  by 
clothing.  It  is  surely  impossible  to  designate  mere  ornament  as  clothing ;  among 
tribes  in  tropical  countries  the  motive  of  protection  against  cold  entirely  disappears, 
and  of  all  the  superfluity  of  our  northern  apparel,  nothing  remains  save  what  is 
required  by  decency.  One  need  hardly  discuss  the  question  whether  there  is 
any  thought  of  simply  protecting  the  parts  concealed.  If  it  were  a  question 
of  protection,  the  feet  and  ankles  would  surely  be  sooner  covered.  What  is  most 
decisive  is  the  observed  fact  that  clothing  stands  in  unmistakable  relation  to  the 
sexual  life,  and  that  the  first  to  wear  complete  clothes  is  not  the  man  who  has  to 
dash  through  the  bush  in  hunting,  but  the  married  woman.  This  gives  us  the 
primary  cause  of  wrappings,  which  must  have  arisen  when  the  family  was  evolved 
from  the  unregulated  intercourse  of  the  horde, — when  the  man  began  to  assert  a 
claim  to  individual  and  definite  women.  He  it  was  who  compelled  the  woman  to 
have  no  dealings  with  other  men,  and  to  cover  herself  as  a  means  of  diminishing 
her  attractions.  As  a  further  step  in  this  direction  may  be  noted  the  veiling  of 
the  bosom.  From  this  root,  the  separation  of  the  sexes,  sprang  the  feeling  of 
modesty  ;  this  developed  powerfully,  and  clothing  with  it.  It  was  a  great  stride  ; 
since  the  more  confined  and  more  destitute  the  life  of  a  tribe  is,  the  less  induce- 
ment is  given  to  a  rigid  separation  of  the  sexes  with  its  attendant  jealousy  ;  and 
the  more  readily  do  they  dispense  with  the  troublesome  covering,  of  which  scanty 
fragments  alone  remain.  Thus  it  is  always  the  smallest,  most  degraded,  most 
out-of-the-way  tribes  among  whom  we  more  especially  find  no  mention  of 
customary  clothing ;  such  as  some  Australian  races,  the  extinct  Tasmanians,  some 
forest  tribes  of  Brazil,  and  here  or  there  a  negro  horde.  Even  with  them  survivals 
of  dress  are  not  wanting.     When  clothing  was  more  complete,  the  woman  gained 


94 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


immensely  in  charm,  esteem,  and  social  position,  so  that  she  had  every  reason  to 
keep  up  her  wardrobe. 

It  is  quite  otherwise  with  the  portion  of  the  dress  intended  directly  to  protect 
the  body.      In  all  places  we  find  the  shoulder-covering  in   the   shape   of  a   cloak. 

Tropical    tribes    use    it 


primarily  to  keep  off  the 
rain,  while  in  colder 
climates  it  serves  for 
warmth  and  also  as  a 
sleeping -cover.  These 
cloak-like  articles  of 
clothing  are  far  less 
v/idely  diffused  than 
those  which  serve  for 
decency  ;  which  also 
proves  that  the  latter 
were  the  first  clothing 
worn  by  men. 

Another  circum- 
stance undoubtedly  has 
contributed  to  develop 
the  sense  of  modesty,  as 
Karl  von  den  Steinen 
has  pointed  out.  As 
the  wild  beast  drags  his 
prey  into  the  thicket,  in 
order  to  devour  it  un- 
disturbed, so  some  tribes 
think  it  highly  inde- 
corous to  look  at  any 
one  eating ;  and  the 
same  may  have  held 
good  in  regard  to  other 
functions.  Still  this  can 
only  have  been  sub- 
sidiary, and  does  not 
account  for  the  original 
concealment.  Finally 
we  must  not  overlook 
the  superstitious  dread 


Woman  of  the  Azandeh,  or  Nyam-Nyams. 
Richard  Buchta. ) 


(From  a  photograph  by 


of  the  possible  effects  of  the  evil  eye,  though  here  again  this  cannot  be  rightly 
assigned  as  the  root-idea  of  modesty.  Curiously  enough,  in  New  Guinea  no 
more  than  in  ancient  Greece  do  the  representations  of  ancestors,  with  their  free 
exhibition  of  what  in  the  living  is  carefully  concealed,  seem  to  give  any  offence 
But  a  these  various  causes  tend  to  react  upon  and  supplement  each  other 
mutually.  Further,  no  relation  can  be  traced  between  the  amount  of  clothine 
worn  and  the  degree  of  culture  attained.  The  lady  of  Uganda  or  Unyoro 
who  drapes  herself  with  elaborate  care  in  her  robes  of  bark,  stands  in  gerieral 


CLOTHING  AND   ORNAMENT 


95 


no  higher  than  the  Nj^am-Nyam  negress,  whose  sole  garment  is  a  leaf.  Nor 
do  the  former  race,  who  treat  it  as  a  capital  offence  to  strip  in  public,  hold  any 
higher  position  than  the  Duallas,  \\'ho  take  off  every  rag  for  their  work  in  the 
sea.  Nor,  lastly,  do  we  find  any  marked  national  distinctions  in  these  matters. 
All  things  considered,  we  may  say  that  in  mankind  of  to-day  modesty  is  universal  ; 
and  where  it  seems  to  be  lacking,  this  is  due  to  some  accidental  or  transitory 
conditions. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  feeling  which 
the  simple  man  is  endeavouring  to  satisfy 
when  he  clothes  his  body.  Next  to  it  stands 
the  gratification  of  vanity.  The  former 
motive,  as  a  mere  injunction  of  custom,  is 
quickly  done  with  ;  the  other  is  sought  to 
be  attained  at  any  cost.  One  may  say  with- 
out exaggeration  that  many  races  spend  the 
greater  part  of  their  thought  and  their  labour 
on  the  adornment  of  their  persons.  These 
are  in  their  own  sphere  greater  fops  than 
can  be  found  in  the  highest  civilization.  The 
traders  who  deal  with  these  simple  folk  know 
how  quickly  the  fashions  change  among 
them,  as  soon  as  a  plentiful  importation  of 
varied  stuffs  and  articles  of  ornament  takes 
place.  The  natural  man  will  undergo  any 
trouble,  any  discomfort,  in  order  to  beautify 
himself  to  the  best  of  his  power. 

Thus  it  would  obviously  be  unjust  to 
form  any  judgment  as  to  the  absence  or 
deficiency  of  clothing  without  regard  to  the 
other  attentions  which  the  "  natural "  races 
pay  to  the  body.  If  we  look  at  all  together 
we  get  an  impression  of  predominant  frivolity. 
Necessaries  have  to  gi\'e  way  to  luxuries. 
The  poorest  Bushman  makes  himself  an 
arm-ring  out  of  a  strip  of  hide,  and  never 
forgets  to  wear  it,  though  it  may  well  happen 
that  his  leather  apron  is  in  a  scandalously  tattered  state.  The  man  of  low  culture 
demands  much  more  luxury  compared  with  his  small  means  than  one  in  a  higher 
stage.  Ornament  holds  such  a  foremost  place  that  some  ethnologists  have 
declared  it  impossible  to  decide  where  clothing  ends  and  ornament  begins.  All 
clothing  seems  to  them  to  have  proceeded  by  way  of  modification  from  ornament ; 
and  they  hold  that  modesty  played  no  part  in  the  earliest  evolution  of  dress. 
The  facts  no  doubt  show  that  the  delight  in  ornament  preponderates  over  the 
sense  of  decency  ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  it  was  anterior. 

Modesty  in  the  woman  is  especially  apt  to  take  on  a  touch  of  coquetry,  for 
an  example  of  which  we  need  look  no  further  than  the  low-necked  dresses  of  our 
own  ball-rooms.  In  this  way  what  was  once  an  article  essential  to  decency  imper- 
ceptibly approximates  more  and  more  to  ornament  by  the  addition  of  fringes,  or. 


Princess  of  Unyoro,  dressed  in  baric-cloth, 
a  photograph  by  Richard  Buchta. ) 


(From 


96 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


as  among  the  Fans  and  some  of  the  Congo  tribes,  by  the  attachment  of  strings 
of  jingling  bells.  Even  more  grotesque  combinations  of  concealment  and  parade 
may  be  observed  ;  especially  where  there  is  a  religious  motive  for  the  former. 

The  style  and  completeness  of  the  clothing  naturally  depends  in  great  measure 
upon  the  extent  to  which  Nature  or  labour  has  provided  material.  All  countries 
are  not  so   benevolently  furnished  in  this  respect  as  tropical  Brazil,  where  the 


\''illage  chief  of  the  Loango  coast,  with  wife  and  dignitary.      (From  a  photograph  by  Dr.  Fallcenstein. ) 

"shirt-tree,"  a  kind  of  Lecythis,  grows  with  its  pliant  and  easily-stripped  bark. 
The  Indians  cut  up  the  stem  into  lengths  of  4  or  5  feet,  strip  the  bark  off,  soak 
and  beat  it  soft,  cut  two  armholes,  and  the  shirt  is  ready.  In  the  same  forests 
grows  a  palm,  the  spathe  of  which  provides  a  convenient  cap  without  further 
preparation.  The  fig-leaf  of  Paradise  recurs  in  a  thousand  variations,  and 
celebrates  its  revival  by  appearing  in  manifold  forms,  even  to  the  universal 
rush-cloak. 

The  use  of  bark  as  a  clothing  material  is,  or  was,  widely  spread  from  Polynesia 
to  the  west  coast  of  Africa.      It  recurs  in  America,  and  thus  is  found  in  all  lands 


CLOTHING  AND   ORNAMENT 


97 


within  the  tropics  ;  and  besides  this,  the  bast  or  inner  bark  of  the  lime  was  used 
for  a  similar  purpose  in  old  days  by  Germanic  tribes.  The  laws  of  Manu 
prescribe  to  the  Brahman  who  purposes  to  end  his  days  in  religious  meditation 
amid  the  primeval  forests,  that  he  shall  wear  a  garment  of  bark  or  skin.  Here 
probably,  as  in  Africa,  the  bark  of  a  species  of  Ficus  was  used  for  the  purpose.  But 
in  Polynesia  the  manufacture  of  a  material  called  tapa  from  the  bark  of  the  paper- 
mulberry  was  carried  to  great  perfection.  Races  who  no  longer  make  use  of  this 
material  procure  it  for  special  occasions.  Thus  the  more  settled  Kayans  of  Borneo, 
when  they  go  into  mourning,  throw  off 
their  cotton  sarongs  to  wrap  themselves 
in  bark -cloth  ;  and  on  the  west  coast  of 
Africa,  at  certain  festivities  connected 
with  fetish-worship,  it  is  usual  to  wear 
skins  instead  of  clothes.  In  this  there 
lies  a  perfectly  right  sentiment,  that  these 
home  -  invented  garments,  borrowed 
directly  from  Nature,  have  a  higher 
intrinsic  value  than  the  rubbishy  Euro- 
pean fripperies,  the  invasion  of  which 
has  made  clothing  arbitrary  and  un- 
dignified. 

How  little  the  great  schoolmistress 
Want  can  impress  upon  the  "  natural " 
races  that  seriousness  which  behaves 
appropriately  at  the  bidding  of  hardship, 
is  shown  by  comparing  the  dwellers  in 
a  severe  climate  with  those  who  live 
under  more  genial  skies.  The  South 
Australians  and  Tasmanians  hardly 
^\ore  more  clothes  than  the  Papuas. 
Considering  the  abundance  of  animals, 
we  can  only  refer  the  scantiness  of  their 
attire  to  laziness.  The  Fuegians  who 
are  best  situated,  those  of  the  east  coast, 
wear  guanaco  cloaks  like  the  Patagonians,  and  those  of  the  west  coast,  have  at 
least  seal-skins  ;  but  among  the  tribes  near  Wollaston  Island  a  piece  of  otter- 
skin,  hardly  as  large  as  a  pocket-handkerchief,  often  forms  the  only  protection 
against  the  rude  climate.  Fastened  across  the  breast  with  strings,  it  is  pushed 
to  one  side  or  another,  according  as  the  wind  blows.  But  many,  says  Darwin, 
go  without  even  this  minimum  of  protection.  Only  the  Arctic  races,  always  in- 
ventive and  sensible,  have  in  this,  as  in  other  matters,  better  adapted  themselves  to 
the  demands  of  their  surroundings  and  their  climate  ;  and  their  clothing  of  furs 
and  bird-skins  is  in  any  case  among  the  most  rational  and  practical  inventions 
in  this  class.  They  are,  however,  the  only  "  natural "  races  of  the  temperate  or 
frigid  zones  whose  clothing  is  completely  adapted  to  its  purpose.  The  outliers 
of  them  in  the  North  Pacific,  such  as  the  inhabitants  of  King  William's  Sound 
and  others,  may  be  recognised   at  once  beside   their  Indian  neighbours  by  their 


Cap  made  of  a  palm-spathe,  from  Brazil. 
(Munich  Ethnographical  Museum. ) 


clothing. 


The  Eskimo  dress,  which  covers  the  whole  body,  obviously  limits  the 

H 


98 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


use  of  ornament.      Hence  we  never  find  arm  or  leg-rings,  and  only  rarely  necklaces 
of  animal's  teeth  or  European  beads  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  buttons,  like  sleeve- 


Bawenda  children  belonging  to  a  mission  school.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of 
Dr.  Wangemann,  Berlin). 


Vur  and  bird  skin  clothmg  of  the  Amu.      (Collection  of  Baron  von  Siebold,  Vienna 


na. ) 


buttons,  of  stone  or  bone,  not  uncommonly  decorate  lips  and  ears.     The  fact  that 
they  tattoo  the  body,  however,  indicates  a  former  residence  in  a  warmer  climate. 


CLOTHING  AND   ORNAMENT 


99 


Footgear  is  universally  worn  on  the  march  ;  it  is  generally  made  of  hide,  less 
often  of  wood  or  bark.  Curiously  enough  the  method  of  fastening  sandals  is 
essentially  the  same  all  the  world  over. 

Among  "  natural "  races  no  one  goes  without  ornament ;  the  contrary  to  what 
we  find  among  civilized  people,  many  of  whom,  rich  and  poor  alike,  avoid  any 
ornamentation,  either  of  their   person    or  of   their   clothing.     But  the  universal 


Woman  of  New  South  Wales.      (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of 
Lieutenant  von  Biilow,  BerUn. ) 

distribution  of  ornament  seems  easier  when  we  consider  its  by -aims.  In  the 
first  place  the  amulets,  which  are  hardly  ever  missing,  assume  the  shape  of 
decorations.  Hildebrandt,  in  his  admirable  work  on  the  Wakamba,  says : 
"  Amulets  are  regarded  as  defensive  weapons,  and  so,  in  a  treatise  on  ethnography, 
deserve  a  place  between  weapons  and  ornaments."  But  they  have  more  affinity 
with  the  latter  than  with  the  former.  The  fan  is  used  not  only  to  flirt,  nor  only 
even  for  purposes  of  coolness,  but  is  an  indispensable  implement  in  kindling  and 
maintaining  the  charcoal  fire.  The  massive  iron  arm-rings,  with  which  the  negro 
bedecks  himself,  are  adapted  for  both  parrying  and  striking.     The  Irengas  of  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Upper  Nile  wear  these  sharpened  to  a  knife-like  edge.  In  peace  they  are  covered 
with  a  leather  sheath,  in  battle  they  serve  as  fighting-rings.  Of.  a  similar  kind 
are  the  arm-rings  of  the  neighbouring  Jurs,  fitted  with  a  pair  of  spikes.  The 
smart  dagger  attached  to  the  upper  arm  or  hung  from  the  neck  is  half  weapon,  half 

ornament.  But  we  must 
reckon  among  genuinely  de- 
corative weapons  the  beau- 
tifully-carved clubs  of  the 
Melanesians  and  negroes, 
the  batons  of  command, 
the  decorated  paddles.  The 
savage  warrior  can  no  more 
do  without  ornament  than 
without  his  weapon.  Are 
we  to  suppose  that  this 
connection  has  so  deep  a 
psychological  basis  in  the 
stimulus  to  self-esteem  and 
courage  given  by  external 
splendour,  that  it  has 
reached  even  to  the  heights 
of  our  own  military  civiliza- 
tion ? 

Ornament  and  distinc- 
tion again  go  hand  in 
hand,  though  for  this  brilliancy  and  costliness  are  not  always  necessary.  In  East 
and  Central  Africa  the  chiefs  wear  arm  and  leg-rings  made  from  the  hair  of  the 


Leg  ornaments  of  dogs'  teeth,  and  shell  armlet,  from  Hawaii. 
( Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum. ) 


Sandal  from  Unyoro.      (After  Baker. ) 

giraffe's  tail ;  in  West  Africa,  caps  from  the  hide  of  a  particular  antelope  •  while 
m  Tonga,  necklaces  of  the  cachalot  or  sperm-whale's  teeth  serve  at  once  for 
ornament,  distinction,  and  money— perhaps  also  for  amulets.  It  is  quite  intel- 
ligible that  in  the  lower  grades  of  civilization,  where  even  great  capitalists  can 
carry  their  property  on  their  persons,  ornament  and  currency  should  be  inter- 
changeable. There  is  no  safer  place— none  where  the  distinction  conferred  by 
wealth  can  be  more  effectively  displayed— than  the  owner's  person.  Hence  the 
frequency  with  which  we  find  forms  of  currency  which  may  at  the  same  time  serve 


2.  Stone  lip-plugs  ;  3,  6,  necklaces  ;  4,  armlet,  worn  by  the  Jur  tribes  ; 
of  the  Shulisi      (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum. 


armlet  ;   7    head-dress 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Irenga  arm  -  ring,  with  sheath.  One- 
fourth  real  size.  (Vienna  Ethnographical 
Museum. ) 


Paddle-shaped  clubs,  probably  from  Fiji ;  and  carved  adzes,  as  carried  by  chiefs 
from  the  Hervey  Islands.  ( Munich  Ethnographical  Museum. )  2.  Dagger  for 
attachmg  to  the  upper  arm,  from  Lagos.      (Christy  Collection,  London  ) 


for  ornament — cowries,  dentaliutn,  and  other  shells, 
cachalots'  teeth,  iron  and  copper  rings,  coins  with 
a  hole  through  them.  Silver  and  gold  currencies 
have  grown  up  in  the  same  way  ;  but  among  the 
barbarous  races  of  the  older  world,  only  the 
Americans  seem  to  have  appreciated  the  value  of 
gold.  It  was  left  for  Europeans  to  discover  the 
great  stores  of  this  metal  in  Australia,  California, 
and  Africa.  To  this  day,  in  the  districts  of 
Famaka  and  Fadasi,  although  almost  every 
torrent  brings  down  gold,  it  plays  no  part  in 
native  ornament  or  trade. 

Lastly,  we  may  reflect  how  eloquent  for  a 
savage  is  the  silent  language  of  bodily  mutilation 
and  disfigurement.  As  Th^ophile  Gautier  says  : 
"  Having  no  clothes  to  embroider,  they  embroider 
their  skiii.'^."  Tattooing  serves  for  a  tribal 
or  famih'  mark  ;  it  often  indicates  victorious 
campaigns,  or  announces  a  lad's  arrival  at 
manhood,  and  so  also  do  various  mutila- 
tions of  teeth  and  artificial  scars.  Radiating 
or  parallel  lines  of  scars  on  cheek  or  breast, 
SLiclt  as  the  Australians  produce  with  no 
other  apparent  ob- 
ject save  that  of 
ornament,  denote 
among  the  Shillooks, 
Tibboos,  and  other 
Africans,  the  loss  of 
near  kindred.  Even 
if  we  cannot  see  in 
circumcision,  or  the 
amputation  of  a 
finger,  any  attempt 
at  personal  embel- 
lishment, in  these 
and  similar  practices 
it  is  diflficult  to 
separate  with  a  hard- 
and  -  fast  line  the 
motives  of  decora- 
tion, distinction,  and 
fulfilment  of  a  reli- 
^^gious  or  social  pre- 
cept. Doubtless  much 
of  the  ornamentation 
which  is  applied  to 
the  body  is  a  mode 


CLOTHING  AND   ORNAMENT 


103 


of  expressing  the  primitive  artistic  impulse  upon  which  special  attention  is 
bestowed  ;  and  thus  the  tattooings  of  the  New  Zealanders,  often  the  work  of  years 
to  execute,  and  that  at  the  cost  of  much  labour  and  pain,  must  be  reckoned 
among  the  most  conspicuous  achievements  of  the  artistic  sense  and  dexterity  of 
that  race.  The  Indians  are  less  distinguished  in  this  respect,  while  among  the 
Negroes  few  devote  so  much  attention  to  this  branch  of  art  as  to  the  arrangement 
of  their  hair — a  point  in  which  they  certainly  surpass  all  races,  being  materially 
aided  in  this  task  by  the  stiff  character  of  their  wigs. 

As  in  all  primitive  industries,  we  meet  here,  as  a  characteristic  phenomenon, 
with  endless  variations  on  a  limited  theme.  Thus  some  races  take  to  painting, 
some  to  tattooing,  some  again  to  hairdressing.      Customs  affecting  the  same  region 


Modes  of  hairdi'essing,  LovaM.     (After  Cameron. ) 


of  the  body  may  often  indicate  relationships.  Thus  the  Batokas  knock  out  their 
upper  front  teeth,  causing  the  lower  to  project  and  push  out  the  under  lip.  Their 
neighbours  to  the  eastward,  the  Manganyas,  wear  a  plug  in  their  upper  lip,  often 
in  the  lower,  and  thereby  arrive  at  a  similar  disfigurement.  These  luxuriant 
developments  of  the  impulse  for  ornament  exhibit  the  innate  artistic  sense  of  a 
race  often  in  an  astonishing  phase,  and  it  is  not  without  interest  to  trace  it  from 
its  crudest  beginnings.  The  articles  which  savages  use  for  ornament  are  calculated 
to  show  up  against  their  dark  skins.  White  shells,  teeth,  and  such  like,  produce 
a  veiy  different  effect  on  that  background  to  what  they  offer  on  our  pale  hands  or 
in  dark  cabinets.  Hence  we  find  far  and  wide  painting  with  red  and  white — 
cosmetics  were  among  the  objects  buried  with  their  dead  by  the  old  Egyptians — 
dressing  of  the  dark  hair  with  white  lime  and  similar  artifices.  But  the  highest 
summit  of  the  art  has  been  attained  by  the  Monbuttus,  who,  in  the  great  variety 
of  patterns  with  which  they  paint  their  bodies,  avoid  harsh  colours  and  elementary 
stripes  and  dots.  The  old  people  alone  leave  off  adorning  themselves  and  let  the 
painting  wear  out ;  but  it  is  at  this  age  that  the  indelible  tattooing  begins  to  be 
valuable. 


104 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Among  one  and  the  same  race,  special  decorative  themes  are  generally  adhered 
to  most  rigidly,  and  varied  only  within  narrow  limits.  We  must,  however,  beware 
of  the  temptation  to  read  too  much  conscious  intention  into  these  manifold 
ornaments.  In  face  of  the  tendency  of  prehistoric  research  to  treat  particular 
themes  as  the  signatures,  so  to  say,  of  the  respective  races,  it  is  necessary  specially 
to  emphasise  the  space  to  be  allowed  for  the  play  of  caprice.      It  is  true  that  you 

can  always  tell  a  Tongan  club  by  the 
little  human  figures  which  stand  out 
in  the  mosaic-like  carved  pattern  ;  but 
here  we  have  to  deal  with  a  limited 
area  of  culture,  within  which  a  great 
persistency  of  tradition  can  easily  be 
aimed  at.  But  would  any  one  take 
the  cross,  which  is  so  natural  a  motive 
in  matted  work,  as  it  appears  on  the 
beautifully  woven  shields  of  the  Nyam- 
Nyams,  for  an  imitation  of  the  Christian 
symbol,  or  ascribe  the  crescent  on 
Polynesian  carved  work  to  the  influ- 
ence of  Islam  ? 

Among  the  other  advantages  en- 
joyed by  the  male  sex  is  that  of  cul- 
tivating every  kind  of  adornment  to 
a  greater  extent,  and  devoting  more 
time  to  it.  In  the  lowest  groups  of 
savages  ornament  follows  the  rule 
which  is  almost  universal  among  the 
higher  animals  ;  the  male  is  the  more 
richly  adorned.  As  is  well  known, 
civilization  has  pretty  well  reversed 
this  relation,  and  the  degree  of  progress  to  which  a  race  has  attained  may  to 
some  extent  be  measured  by  the  amount  of  the  sacrifice  which  the  men  are 
prepared  to  make  for  the  adornment  of  their  women.  Otherwise,  in  the  most 
civilized  communities,  men  only  revert  to  the  custom  of  ^^--- 
adorning  themselves  when  they  happen  to  be  soldiers  or  ^"^^7^^ 
attendants  at  court.  X^^^^amijjj.^^ 

A  practical  result  of  the  tendency  to  luxury  in  the  midst  West  African  :node  of  filing 
ot  destitution  is  the  confinement  of  trade  with  the  "  natural  "  -      - 

races  to   a    small    list    of  articles,  the    number    of  which   is 


West  African  body-tattooing.      (From  a  drawing  by 
P^chuel-Loesche. ) 


the  teeth.     (From  a  draw- 
ing by  the  same. ) 


almost  entirely  limited  by  the  purposes  of  ornament  or  pastime  and  sensual 
enjoyment.  Of  trade  in  the  great  necessaries  of  food  and  clothing  there  is 
hardly  any.  The  objects  exchanged,  things  of  value  and  taste,  are  primarily 
luxuries.  Setting  aside  the  partly  civilized  inhabitants  of  the  coast,  and  the 
European  colonies,  the  important  articles  of  the  African  trade  are  beads  brass 
wire,  brass  and  iron  rings,  spirits,  tobacco.  The  only  articles  in  a  different 
category  which  have  attained  to  any  importance  are  cotton  goods  and  firearms. 

Finally  we  may  find  a  place  in  this  section  for  those  implements  of  the  toilet 
wherewith  all  those  works  of  art  are  performed  upon  which  primitive  man,  in  this 


CLOTHING  AND    ORNAMENT 


105 


respect  nowise  behind   his   civilized   brother,  bases   his  hope  of 

quering.     Let  us  hear  how  Schweinfurth  describes  the  dressing 

lady :  "  For  pulling  out  eyelashes  and  eyebrows  they  make  use 

Peculiar  to  the  women  of  the 

Bongos  are  the  curious  little 

elliptical  knives  fitted  into  a 

handle  at  both  ends,  sharpened 

on  both  edges  and  decorated 

with  tooling  in  many  patterns. 

These  knives  the  women  use 

for  all  their  domestic  opera 

tions,    especially    for    peeling 

tubers,  slicing  cucumbers  and 


pleasing 
case  of 
of  little 


and  con- 
a  Bongo 
tweezers. 


I.    r_rt'_! hJ.l  combs  from  Pelew.     One  half  real  size.     (Kubary  Collection,  Berlin.' 

a.  Azandeh  or  Nyam-Nyam  shield.     One-tenth  real  size.     (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum. ) 

gourds,  and  the  like.  Rings,  bells  of  different  kinds,  clasps,  and  buttons,  which 
are  stuck  into  holes  bored  in  their  lips  and  ear  lobes  ;  with  lancet-shaped  hairpins, 
which  seem  necessary  for  parting  and  dividing  their  plaits,  complete  the  Bongo 
lady's  dressing-case."  A  pair  of  tweezers  for  thorns,  in  a  case  attached  to  the 
dagger-sheath,  forms  part  of  the  outfit  in  almost  all  parts  of  Africa.  Many  carry 
a  porcupine's  bristle  or  an  ivory  pin  stuck  into  the  hair  to  keep  it  smooth. 
Combs  are  well  known  to  the  Polynesians,  the  Arctic  races,  and  the  Negroes. 

While  the  civilized  European  regards  cleanliness  as  the  best  adornment,  even 
the  Oriental  is  very  far  from  giving  it  a  high  place.      Barbarous  races  practise  it 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


when  it  does  not  cost  too  much  trouble.  In  certain  directions,  however,  it  can 
become  a  custom  ;  for  example,  the  negro  pays  much  more  attention  to  keepmg 
his  teeth  clean  than  the  average  European.  The  horror  of  ordure  is  often  in 
truth  superstitious,  and  in  that  case  contributes  to  keep  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
huts  cleanly.  Furneaux  was  astonished  to  see  latrines  among  the  Maoris.  But 
what  especially  promotes  cleanliness  is  the  absence  or  scantiness  of  clothing. 
Dirt  as  a  general  rule  is  principally  met  with  among  such  races  as  are  compelled 
by  uncertainty  of  climate  or  by  custom  to  keep  their  bodies  always  covered.  A 
daily  change  will  involve  rapid  wearing  out,  and  for  this  reason  they  usually 
wear  their  clothes,  as  Jenghis  Khan  prescribed,  until  they  drop  off  in  tatters. 
In  the  most  intimate  family  life,  however,  a  reserve  prevails  among  natural  races 
which  puts  their  civilized  brethren  to  shame.  Among  Negroes,  Malays,  and 
Indians,  it  is  a  widespread  custom  that  parents  and  children  should  not  sleep  in 
the  same  room. 


§   II.  HABITATIONS 

The  first  huts — Germs  of  buildings  in  wood  and  stone — Temporary  character  of  most  hut  architecture — His- 
torical value  of  permanent  building — Classification  of  the  natural  races  according  to  their  style  of  building 
— Shelter  as  a  motive — Pile  buildings — Assemblage  of  habitations — The  ethnographic  importance  of  towns 
— Various  descriptions  of  towns — Ruins  of  towns  and  of  civilizations. 

The  germ  of  architecture,  the  first  hut,  was  called  into  existence  by  a  need  which 
is  primitive  and  universal.  No  race  lives  for  a  continuance  in  hollow  trees,  as 
certain  of  the  Tasmanians  did  in  Cook's  time,  or  as  the  scattered  Bechuanas 
in  the  Matabele  kingdom.  That  first  hut  was  no  doubt  very  simple  and  perish- 
able. Architecture  in  the  real  sense,  that  is  building  made  to  last,  and  sub- 
sequently decorated  edifices,  lie  nearer  to  the  present  time.  In  the  somewhat 
vague  statement  of  Laprade,  "  the  birth  of  architecture,  the  building  of  the  first 
temple,  marks  the  beginning  of  the  historical  period,"  the  ethnographer  will  find 
a  somewhat  narrow  notion  of  a  temple  in  view  of  the  fetish  huts  of  the  Central 
Africans  or  the  Melanesians  ;  for  him  the  step  beyond  the  most  primitive  hut- 
building  begins  much  earlier. 

The  first  germ  from  which,  in  later  times,  the  inspiring  grandeur  of  architecture 
was  to  unfold  itself,  lay  in  the  need  of  shelter.  We  may  mention  first  the  ways 
in  which  this  need  drives  men  to  rely  on  Nature.  We  shall  have  to  speak  of  the 
almost  brute-like  habit  of  living  in  trees  found  among  many  races.  The  use  of 
pendent  branches,  which  are  hastily  plaited  together  and  strengthened,  as  among 
the  half  nomad  Bushmen,  is  nearly  akin  to  it.  By  cutting  down  branches  or 
saplings,  sticking  them  in  the  ground  in  a  circle,  binding  together  the  upper  ends, 
and  roofing  this  hasty  edifice  with  boughs  or  skins,  is  the  next  step  towards 
simple  hut-building  as  we  find  it  among  Fuegians  and  Hottentots,  Gallas  and 
Somali.  Hence  we  are  brought  by  a  long  series  of  more  permanent  and 
gradually  more  decorated  buildings  to  the  richly  ornamented  wooden  houses  of 
the  Papuas  and  Malays,  or  the  Pelew  Islanders,  and  the  stoneless  palaces  of  the 
Monbuttu  or  Waganda  kings.  The  kindred  germ  of  stone  architecture  was  given 
by  the  habit  of  dwelling  in  caves,  widely  spread  in  primitive  times,  and  not  yet 
obsolete.      It  has  an  advantage  in  the  durability  of  the  material,  counterbalanced 


HABIT  A  TIONS 


107 


by  its  lesser  adaptability  to  decoration  and  ornament.  But  the  advantage  out- 
weighs the  disadvantage,  for  as  soon  as  an  effort  is  made  in  the  direction  of  taste, 
it  was  easier  to  satisfy  in  the  matter  of  symmetry,  which  is  the  fundamental 
condition  of  all  architectural  beauty. 

How  little  the  hard  pressure  of  necessity  can  do  to  call  forth  a  greater  activity 
in  satisfying  those  demands  for  shelter  and  food,  which  are  most  imperious  where 
the  climate  is  most  harsh  and  the  plant  and  animal  world  most  scanty,  is  shown 
by  the  case  of  the  Fuegians  who,  incredible  as  it  may  sound,  build  not  more,  but 


Caves  of  the  Bushmen.     (After  Fritsch. ) 

less,  than  more  favourably  situated  races.  So,  too,  the  Tasmanians  must  be  indi- 
cated as  having  been  the  most  backward  of  all  Australasians  in  hut-building.  In 
Australia  itself  it  is  surprising  to  see  how  it  is  just  in  the  warmest  regions  that 
hut-building  has  made  most  progress  ;  while  it  is  most  wretched  in  the  coldest 
parts,  where  the  hut  is  in  fact  a  protection  rather  for  the  fire  than  for  the  people. 
When  we  find  a  similar  fact  recurring  elsewhere,  as  we  do  in  South  America  and 
South  Africa,  it  establishes  with  all  the  force  of  an  experiment  that  it  is  not  the 
schoolmistress  need  that  has  most  power  to  compel  a  progress  towards  culture, 
but  that  it  is  only  in  a  tranquil  development  guaranteed  by  peace  and  plenty  that 
the  higher  stages,  even  in  the  matter  of  hut  and  housebuilding,  can  be  reached. 

What  is  required  ■  above  all  is  continuity.  Nomadism  strikes  deeper  than  we 
realise  into  the  lives  of  even  agricultural  races.  The  famous  art  of  constructing 
dwellings  rapidly  in  bee-hive  style,  that  form  of  hut  used  by  Hottentots  and 
Bechuanas,  which   pre-supposes  access   to   the  flexible  half-grown   stems  of  the 


io8 


THE   HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


mimosa,  only  shows  that  the  distinction  between  the  hut  and  the  tent  is  as  yet 
not  fully  appreciated.  These  edifices  disappear  as  quickly  as  they  spring  up. 
The  most  symmetrical  and  most  elegant  huts  used  by  Negroes,  even  though,  as 
on  the  Upper  Nile,  their  ground-plan,  form  of  roof,  proportions,  vary  from  one 
tribe  to  another,  are  often  hastily  run  up  "of  reeds  and  grass.  Nothing  but  their 
temporary  character  prevents  the  development  of  a  style  of  art  relying  on  types 
and  creating  new  works  on  the  basis  of  the  old.      The  destructive  force  of  Nature 

comes  as  additional  to  the  perishable 
character  of  the  structure.  Everywhere 
in  tropical  latitudes  the  flimsy  dwellings 
are  subject  to  speedy  decay  by  reason 
of  boring  beetles,  devouring  ants, 
tropical  storms.  Nor  do  the  human 
inhabitants  in  any  way  cleave  to  the 
soil ;  on  the  contrary,  they  regulate 
their  mode  of  life  quite  in  the  sense  of 
Nature,  with  whom  "  all  things  are  in 
flux,"  and,  instead  of  restoring  their 
dwellings,  they  desert  them  in  order 
without  trouble  to  get  virgin  soil  for 
cultivation.  Junker  found  in  the  Bahr- 
el-Ghazal  country  hardly  any  of  the 
zeribas  which  Schweinfurth  had  so 
precisely  indicated.  After  a  very  few 
years  what  was  once  a  well-ordered 
settlement  displays  at  most  a  few  posts 
standing  in  circles,  and  weeds  sprouting 
ever  afresh  from  the  seeds  of  what  once 
were  cultivated  plants. 

There  is  nothing  monumental  about 
negro  architecture,  and  for  that  very 
reason  anything  durable  is  all  the  more 
conspicuously  significant  in  that  land 
of  nomadic  building.  The  granite  of 
Syene,  the  black  limestone  of  Persepolis, 
which  have  retained  even  to  our  days 


Tree-dwellings  in  South  India.     (After  Jagor. ) 


the  most  delicate  sculpture  and  the  smoothest  polish,  are  of  high  historical 
significance  as  trustworthy  props  and  bearers  of  tradition.  They  witness  to  the 
truth  of  a  remark  of  Herder's  :  "  No  work  of  art  has  died  in  the  history  of 
mankind."  How  great  an  influence  has  been  produced  on  us  by  the  fact  that 
those  remains,  so  far  removed  both  in  place  and  time  from  the  modern  civilization 
of  the  Nile  valley,  have  been  handed  down  to  us  uninjured  ?  But  how  much 
greater  was  the  value  of  these  stony  witnesses  of  the  greatness,  the  deeds,  the 
religion,  the  knowledge  of  their  nation,  for  the  people  who  walked  beneath  them  ? 
This  hard  stone  gave  as  it  were  a  skeleton  to  tradition,  to  guard  it  from 
premature  collapse.  In  any  case  the  fact  of  settlement  in  stone  houses,  vying  in 
firmness  with  the  solid  earth,  had  a  significance  very  different  from  that  of  settle- 
ment in  huts  of  bamboo  and  brushwood. 


HABITA  TIONS 


109 


In  any  classification  of  races  according  to  their  method  of  building,  the  lowest 
grade  will  be  held  by  nomadic  hunting  and  fishing  peoples  of  the  type  of  the 
Fuegians,  the  Bushmen,  the  Tasmanians,  and  many  Australians,  who  inhabit  no 
huts  built  on  a  fixed  plan  or  placed  regularly  together  in  villages,  but  put  up 
temporary  shelters  of  brushwood  and  reeds.  The  tent-dwelling  nomads,  whether 
their  tents  be  of  leather  like  those  of  the  Arabs,  or  of  felt,  the  Mongol  or  Sifan 
yaourts,  so  far  as  plan  goes,  are  not  much  superior  to  those  above-mentioned  ; 
but  the  necessity  of  guarding  their  herds  has  made  it  a  characteristic  of  them  all 


Fishing  village  on  the  Melcong.      (From  a  photograph 


to  be  arranged  in  a  circle  ;  and  thus  has  grown  up  the  more  regular  disposition 
inside  of  a  fence  or  boundary  wall,  with  gates.  These  again  suggest  those  partly 
agricultural,  partly  nomadic  Negroes  who  build  huts  of  beehive  or  conical  shape, 
in  the  most  various  stages  of  perfection.  The  Negroes  of  Central  Africa  who,  from 
Ugogo  all  across  to  the  Fan  and  Dualla  countries,  build  rectangular  houses  with 
several  rooms  and  ornamented  doors,  form  the  transition  to  the  Malays  of 
Madagascar  and  the  Indian  Archipelago,  and  to  the,  races  of  the  Pacific,  whose 
richly-ornamented  and  often  large  houses,  very  various  in  design,  offer  the  most 
perfect  work  found  in  the  way  of  timber-building  among  "  natural  "  races.  Among 
them,  however,  we  find  at  the  same  time  (as  on  Easter  Island)  the  beginnings  of 
masonry  in  connection  with  monumental  sculpture.  The  Polar  races  live  in  stone 
buildings  or  in  huts  in  which  snow  takes  the  place  of  wood.  A  zone  of  stone 
houses  with  several  stories  passes  through  India,  Arabia,  and  the  Berber  regions 
of  Africa.      Contiguous  stone  houses  for  hundreds  of  families  occur  among  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Indians  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona  ;  and  these  bring  us  to  the  great  monumentaj 
buildings  of  the  races  who  were  outside  the  sphere  of  Old-world  culture,  as  the 
Mexicans,  Central  Americans,  and  inhabitants  of  the  South  American  plateaux. 


^iy.^rh^§:i 


The  so  caUed      Dwarf  s  House     at  Chichen  Itza      (After  Charnaj  ) 


ndependently  of  all  these  variations,  special  kinds  of  habitation  and  building 
develop  themselves  from  the  fundamental  idea  of  shelter.  Men  were  led  to 
found  permanent  abodes  in  the  water— not  that  of  the  insecure  and  violent  sea  but 
always  only  m  calm  inland  lakes  or  rivers  with  gentle  current— at  first  obviously 
by  the  wish  to  protect  themselves  from  beasts  of  prey  and  enemies  of  their  own 


HABITATIONS 


species  ;  but  later,  and  on  higher  planes  of  civilization,  with  the  view  of  avoiding 
the  crush  and  pressure  of  great  assemblages  of  human  beings  in  a  limited  space, 
as  in  China  with  its  excessive  population,  and  some  parts  of  Further  India.  In 
the  former  case  the  favourite  method  of  surrounding  oneself  with  the  protecting 
water  was  to  build  on  piles  and  platforms  ;  in  the  other,  large  rafts  or  condemned 
barges  served  for  dwellings,  whence  again  pile  buildings  were  evolved,  but  on  a 
larger  scale  than  in  the  former  stage,  which  is  marked  rather  by  isolation,  than 
by  crowding.  Even  in  our  own  days  pile-dwellings  are  numerous  ;  they  are 
built  by  most  of  the  races  of  the  Indian  Archipelago,  by  Melanesians,  most  of 
the  Americans  of  the 
North-west,  certain 
tribes  in  Africa  and 
Central  and  South 
America.  We  can 
easily  convince  our- 
selves, if  we  please, 
that  the  phenomenon 
is  no  less  natural  than 
frequent.  Thus  our 
European  pile-dwel- 
lings call  for  no  arti- 
ficial hypotheses  as 
to  specific  pile-build- 
ing races,  Etruscan 
warehouses  for  trade 
goods,  or  the  like. 
In  later  times  the 
idea  of  protection 
may  often  have  be- 
come superfluous  and 
passed  into  oblivion, 
while  the  custom  remained.  Nor  were  piles  always  necessary  for  the  cpnstruc- 
tion  of  such  dwellings  ;  many  other  means  were  employed  to  isolate  and  protect 
dwellings  and  stores.  We  may  recall  the  old  Irish  a-annoges,  or  fenced  villages, 
or  our  modern  cities  built  on  piles — -Amsterdam,  St.  Petersburg,  Venice.,  From 
the  effort  to  gain  the  greatest  possible  security,  together  with  the  desire  for  a 
more  healthy  position,  arises  the  practice  in  vogue  among  traders,  fettled  on 
foreign  shores  to  take  up  their  abode  on  ships  or. hulks,  which  are  rnoored 
out  in  rivers  or  harbours,  and  contain  at  the  same  time  their  warehouses.  In 
a  smaller  measure  the  same  end  is  served  by  the  post-supported  dwellings 
on  dry  land,  very  common  among  the  Malays,  and  to  be  found  in  Africa, 
especially  in  universal  application  to  storehouses.  Livingstone  relates  that  the 
Batokas  on  the  Lower  Zambesi  build  their  huts  on  a  high  framework  in  the 
middle  of  their  gardens,  in  order  to  protect  themselves  from  wild  beasts, 
especially  the  spotted  hyenas.  Tree-dwellings,  as  of  the  Battaks  in  Sumatra, 
of  many  Melanesians,  of  South  Indian  tribes,  come  under  this  head.  They  are 
not  really  a  primitive  stage  ot  dwelling,  comparable  to  the  arboreal  residences 
of  the  orang-outang,  but  arise  simply  from  the  employment  of  trees  as  posts. 


^.Us.'-'^jsS^ 


House  in  Central  Sumatra.      (After  Veth. ) 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


The   huts   which   the   trees    support   often   belong   to   the    best -made   things    of 
their  kind. 

The  effects  of  the  craving  for  protection  reach  neither  far  nor  deep,  when  the 
essence  of  it  is  only  isolation  ;  but  when  it  tends  to  pack  men  together  it  gives 
rise  to  developments  which  have  a  wide  and  mighty  bearing.  The  great  cities 
which  belong  to  the  most  marvellous  results  of  civilization  stand  at  the  further 
end  of  the  effects  produced  by  this  tendency  to  unite  men  and  their  dwellings 
about  a  single  point.  Nothing  will  enable  us  so  well  to  recognise  the  power  of 
the  motive  of  defence  as  a  glance  at  the  situation  of  cities.  We  find  fortified 
villages  crowded  together  on  the  tops  of  mountains  or  on  islands,  in  the  bights 


Village  on  a  tongue  of  land,  Lake  Tanganyika.      (After  Cameron.) 

of  rivers  or  on  tongues  of  land.  Since  most  centres  of  habitation  have  been  laid 
out  at  a  time  when  a  thin  population  was  beginning  to  spread,  and  the  danger 
of  hostile  invasions  was  vividly  before  their  eyes,  considerations  of  defence  are 
often  strongly  stamped  on  their  situation.  We  need  only  set  before  our  minds 
the  way  in  which  nearly  all  the  older  towns  of  Greece  and  Italy  stand  on  the  tops 
or  sides  of  hills,  or  remember  that  nearly  all  the  oldest  maritime  trading  cities 
are  placed  on  islands.  The  tendency  to  pack  together  may' pass  into  an  extreme, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Indian  dwellings  in  Colorado,  combining  the  character  of 
caves  and  castles,  which  shelter  numbers  of  persons  in  the  narrowest  possible 
space,  and  often  are  only  accessible  by  steps  in  the  rock  or  by  ladders. 

A  third  cause  to  be  considered  is  common  interests  in  labour.  These  of 
course  increase  with  the  progress  of  economic  division  of  labour,  until  they  form 
the  principal  cause  which  decides  the  situation  of  an  inhabited  place.  Even  at 
primitive  stages  of  culture  large  populations  assemble  temporarily  in  spots  where 
useful  things  occur  in  quantity.  The  Indians  of  a  great  part  of  North  America 
make  pilgrimages  to  the  beds  of  pipestone  ;  and  we  have  mentioned  the  crowds 
who  go  yearly  to  gather  the  harvest  of  the  zizania  swamps  in  the  north-western 
lakes,  and  the  assemblage  from  all  parts  of  widely-scattered  Australian  tribes  on 


HABITATIONS  ii3 


the  Barcoo  river  for  the  seed-time  of  the  grain-bearing  Marsiliacese.  These  are 
transitory  assemblies.  But  when  once  the  step  is  taken  from  a  roaming  life  to  a 
settled  one,  places  of  just  this  kind  will  be  among  the  first  selected  ;  and  if,  when 
life  has  become  settled,  the  population  increases  and  division  of  labour  comes  in, 
larger  habitations  will  spring  up  until  such  spots  of  the  earth  as  are  furnished  by- 
Nature  with  any  special  wealth  will,  as  the  highest  stages  of  civilization  are 
reached,  show  those  unwontedly  dense  populations — 400  and  upwards  to  the 
square  mile — which  we  meet  with  in  the  fertile  lowlands  of  the  Nile  and  Ganges, 
in  the  coal  and  iron  districts  of  Central  and  Western  Europe,  or  in  the  goldfields 
of  Australia  and  California. 

The  larger  isolated  aggregations,  on  the  contrary,  come  into  existence  at 
definite  points,  which  have  become  points  where  the  streams  of  traffic  meet  or 
intersect.  The  wish  for  exchange  of  goods  first  causes  the  need  for  drawing  as 
near  as  possible ;  traffic  creates  towns.  Everywhere  that  Nature  simplifies  or 
intensifies  traffic  great  assemblages  of  men  spring  up,  whether  as  cities  of  the 
world  like  London,  or  market-towns  like  Nyangwe. 

We  assume  by  a  kind  of  instinct  a  certain  connection  between  cities  and 
higher  culture,  and  not  without  reason,  since  it  is  in  the  cities  that  the  highest 
flower  of  our  culture  declares  itself.  But  the  fact  that  just  this  development  of 
cities  is  so  important  in  China,  shows  that  a  certain  material  culture  is  independent 
of  the  highest  intellectual  culture,  and  gives  an  impressive  lesson  of  the  real 
extent  to  which  cities  help  to  serve  that  life  of  trade  which  is  less  dependent  on 
culture,  nay,  even  for  the  most  part  spring  from  it.  If  cities  are  an  organic 
product'  of  national  life,  they  are  not  always  the  result  of  that  race's  own  force 
to  which  they  belong.  There  are  towns  of  international  trade,  like  Singapore,  or, 
in  a  lesser  degree,  the  Arab  and  Swahili  stations  on  the  coast  of  Madagascar  ; 
or  colonial  towns,  which  are  closely  akin  to  these,  such  as  Batavia,  Zanzibar,  or 
Mombasa.  So  mighty  is  traffic  that  it  bears  with  it  the  organisation  necessary  to 
it  into  the  midst  of  an  alien  nationality ;  so  that  again  whole  races  which  have 
become  organs  of  traffic  bear  the  stamp  of  town  life  on  their  brow.  Most  of  all, 
indeed,  are  the  desert-dwellers  urban  races  ;  for  the  nature  of  their  place  of  abode 
crowds  them  together  around  the  springs,  and  also  for  defence,  and  forces  them 
to  more  durable  building  than  would  be  possible  with  timber  and  brushwood.  The 
fact,  too,  that  the  oases  are  widely  scattered  renders  it  almost  impossible  for  any 
assemblage  of  habitations  to  become  a  centre  of  traffic  in  the  wide-meshed  net  of  the 
desert  roads.  The  first  conquerors  of  an  inhabited  country,  again,  are  often  com- 
pelled to  live  in  towns,  independently  of  traffic  ;  feeling  themselves  secure  only 
in  close  settlements.  Then  in  later  times  these  compulsory  towns  follow  the 
natural  requirements  of  trade,  and  change  their  situation.  Premature  foundation 
of  towns  is  a  symptom  of  young  colonisations  ;  in  North  and  Central  America 
we  may  find  ruined  cities  of  quite  modern  date.  In  the  Chinese  region  of 
colonisation  on  the  frontier  of  nomads  and  Chinese,  along  the  upper  Hoang-ho, 
numerous  ruined  cities  are  characteristic  of  the  zone  where  semi-civilization  comes 
into  contact  with  semi-savagery. 


114  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


§  12.  FAMILY  AND  SOCIAL  CUSTOMS 

Head  and  family— Polygamy— Position  of  women— Female  rule— "  Mother-right " — Exogamy— Capture  of 
women — Parents  and  children — Morality — Society — Social  inequalities — Slavery — Races  in  bondage — 
Distinctive  character  of  property — Extent  of  the  distinction  in  tropical  countries — Property  in  land — 
Examples  of  various  conceptions  of  private  property — Civilizing  power  of  ownership — Poverty  and  labour 
in  uncivilized  peoples. 

Every  step  towards  higher  development  involves  grouping  in  societies.  The 
Animal  sociale  of  Linnseus  ^  is  justified  by  history,  and  the  most  natural  form  of 
society  is  the  Family.  It  is  the  only  source  from  which  all  social  and  political 
life  can  be  developed.  If  there  was  any  union  before  the  family,  it  was  a  herd, 
but  not  a  state.  The  stability  which  every  political  organisation  capable  of 
development  must  needs  possess,  first  comes  into  existence  with  the  family.  With 
its  development  the  security  for  economic  advantages,  which  forms  the  foundation 
of  all  higher  civilization,  goes  hand  in  hand. 

The  fundamental  basis  of  the  family  is  the  union  of  the  sexes  in  a  common 
home  in  which  the  children  are  brought  up.  Within  the  wide  limits  of  this 
definition  we  find  marriage  universal.  Where  marriage  has  been  supposed  to  be 
absent,  even  among  the  most  promiscuous  nomads  of  the  forest  and  desert,  its 
existence  has  sooner  or  later  been  in  every  case  established.  Extraordinary  as 
has  been  the  spread  of  polygamy,  extending  even  to  the  possession  of  thousands 
of  wives,  as  a  rule  the  establishment  of  the  family  begins  in  the  union  of  one  man 
with  one  woman.  Even  elsewhere,  one  wife  remains  the  first  in  rank,  and  her 
children  have,  as  a  rule,  the  rights  of  primogeniture. 

Marriage  is  an  endeavour  to  bridle  the  strongest  natural  impulse — one  which 
advance  in  civilization  has  as  yet  hardly  diminished.  The  restriction  is  at  all 
stages  and  under  all  circumstances  constantly  being  loosened  or  broken,  and  then 
reimposed  in  new  forms.  Thus  an  enormous  variety  of  shiftings  lies  between  the 
modern  forms  of  monogamy  and  those  survivals  of  old  forms  which  are  referred 
to  group-marriage.  But  all  are  variations  of  the  same  problem,  how  to  bind  man 
and  woman  to  a  lasting  union. 

In  every  great  community  we  find  smaller  groups  of  persons  who  are  dis- 
qualified or  withheld  from  marriage.  Continence  as  a  religious  duty  holds  no 
very  important  place,  though  in  all  parts  of  the  earth  we  find  celibacy  regarded  as 
the  highest  perfection  in  military  and  sacerdotal  organisations.  But  in  a  far  higher 
degree  is  the  natural  development  of  the  family  hindered  by  the  unequal  number  of 
the  sexes.  The  capture  of  women  often  connected  with  slavery,  infanticide,  war,  and 
the  emigration  of  the  men,  bring  about  an  excess  of  women.  From  the  point  of 
view  of  the  relations  prevailing  among  ourselves,  which  are  based  upon  an  equality 
of  numbers  in  the  two  sexes,  it  is  hard  to  conceive  a  state  of  things  in  which  the 
women  are  two  or  three  times  as  many  as  the  men.  Yet  not  only  do  we  find 
in  Uganda,  according  to  Felkin,  seven  women  to  every  three  men,  but  in  the 
half-civilized  Paraguay  it  was  reckoned  in  1883,  after  some  years  of  war,  that 
out  of  345,000  inhabitants,  two -thirds  were  women.  The  consequence  is  an 
excess  of  the  female  element  in  the  family,  which  is  the  most  immediate  cause  of 

'  [And  of  Aristotle  long  before  him.  ] 


FAMILY  AND  SOCIAL   CUSTOMS  115 

polygamy.  A  superfluity  of  men,  such  as  civilization  brings  with  it  in  new 
countries  peopled  by  immigrants,  is  less  frequent  in  the  lower  grades  ;  we  find 
it  where  there  are  slaves,  and  in  great  centres  of  commerce.  Plurality  of  husbands, 
or  polyandry,  which  was  formerly  regarded  as  a  specially  deep-rooted  and  ancient 
form  of  the  family,  has  by  closer  observation  been  shown  to  be  a  development 
from  altered  or  abnormal  conditions.  The  small  number  of  women  among  the 
imported  labourers  in  Fiji  has  caused  a  true  polyandry  to  grow  up,  and  it  has 
arisen,  under  similar  conditions,  among  a  slave  colony  of  Dinka  slaves  in  Lega 
land.  In  Tibet,  and  among  the  Nairs  in  India,  one  man  may  belong  to  several 
married  groups. 

Independently  of  these  outgrowths  of  marriage,  in  which  nevertheless  the 
woman  follows  the  man — while  he  is  her  lord,  and  the  lord  of  her  children  and 
her  earnings, — we  find  that  form  of  marriage,  equally  possible  with  monogamic 
or  polygamic  institutions,  in  which  the  man  enters  the  woman's  community,  and 
the  children  belong  to  her.  Here  comes  in  what  in  one  word  is  called  "  Mother- 
right."  This  takes,  as  the  corner  stone  of  the  family  and  of  society,  the  one 
certain  fact  in  all  relationships — the  kinship  of  children  to  their  mother.  When 
Herodotus  found  among  the  Lycians  the  custom  whereby  the  children  took  the 
mother's  name,  and  pedigrees  were  reckoned  in  the  female  line,  he  thought  that 
that  people  differed  from  all  others.  But  we  now  know  that  this  custom,  either 
practised  consciously  and  completely,  or  only  as  a  survival,  recurs  among  many 
races.  The  child  may  be  so  closely  attached  to  the  kindred  of  the  mother  that 
in  tribal  feuds  father  and  son  may  fight  on  opposite  sides.  In  all  races  we  find 
nations  among  whom  the  chiefship  descends  through  the  mother.  It  is  tempting  to 
see  in  this  a  survival  from  an  older  form  of  marriage,  perhaps  a  transition  to  group- 
marriage  ;  since  this  too  looks  for  the  only  unquestionable  certainty  of  a  child's 
origin  in  his  kinship  to  his  mother,  and  thus  equally  ignores  the  father.  It  is 
also  certain  that  where  mother-right  prevails,  so  far  from  any  promiscuity  of 
intercourse  arising,  women  who,  owing  to  their  kinship  to  their  own  group,  may 
only  mate  with- a  man  belonging  to  another,  stand  to  him  in  a  much  closer  relation 
than  do  those  with  whom  he  is  forbidden  ever  to  mate.  The  husband  enters  the 
tribe,  even  the  household,  of  his  wife,  and  a  whole  series  of  customs,  in  many  cases 
very  extraordinary,  points  to  the  fact  that  in  spite  of  the  bond  of  wedlock  he  is 
regarded  as  a  stranger  there.  Tylor  has  collected  statistics  indicating  that  the 
curious  practice  whereby  the  husband  avoids  and  refuses  to  know  the  wife's  parents, 
and  especially  his  mother-in-law,  appears  almost  exclusively  in  the  cases  where  he 
enters  the  wife's  family.  These  onerous  ordinances,  too,  are  among  the  most 
strictly  enforced.  An  Australian  indignantly  repels  a  suggestion  to  utter  the 
name  of  his  mother-in-law.  When  John  Tanner,  the  naturalized  Ojibbeway,  was 
introduced  by  an  Assiniboine  friend  into  his  wigwam,  he  noticed  that  two  old 
people — his  friend's  father  and  mother-in-law — veiled  their  faces  while  their  son- 
in-law  went  by.  Each  will  even  avoid  the  footprints  which  the  other  may  have 
made  in  the  sand.  The  custom  of  naming  the  father  after  the  child,  as  Moffat 
was  called  "  Mary's  father,"  is  also  found  where  the  husband  has  migrated  into  the 
family  of  the  wife.  It  may  be  explained  as  an  indication  that  the  non-acquaint- 
ance continues  until  such  time  as  the  birth  of  a  child  has  established  a  connection 
between  himself  and  the  family.  The  small  attention,  too,  which  the  father  pays 
to  the  bringing-up  of  his  offspring,  is  probably  due  to  a  like  cause  ;   the  children 


ii6 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


do  not  belong  to  him,  but  to  the  mother  and  her  tribe.  A  survival  of  the  privileged 
position  of  the  female  side  appears  also  in  the  etiquette  prevailing  among  the 
Kurnai  of  Australia,  by  which  the  husband  has  to  assign  certain  special  portions 
of  game  taken  by  him  to  his  parents-in-law.  We  must  not,  however,  look  for 
traces  of  mother -right  in  every  insignificant  custom,  such,  for  example,  as  the 
provision  of  the  wedding-breakfast  by  the  bride's  family. 


A  Zulu  family.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Wangemann. ) 


The  transition  from  this  system  to  that  in  which  the  father  is  the  head  of  the 
house,  or  as  it  may  be  called,  "  father-right,"  appears  to  come  about  spontaneously, 
in  cases  where  the  father  acquires  property  by  his  own  exertions  ;  which  then 
naturally  belongs  to  him.  Again,  local  separation  furnishes  a  point  of  origin  for 
the  extension  of  the  new  family.  Powell  relates  that  an  Indian  tribe  in  which 
mother-right  prevailed,  being  compelled  in  a  time  of  dearth  to  migrate  with  its 
women,  became  in  its  new  situation  the  originator  of  a  tribe  with  father-right. 
In  view  of  the  tendency  to  exempt  from  the  mother's  right  of  bequest  land  which 
has  been  cleared  by  the  father  with  or  without  the  aid  of  the  children,  it  must 
happen  that,  for  example,  settlements  in  a  new  country  must  be  at  the  disposal 
of  the  father  ;  and  besides  this,  movable  property  shows  the  sarne  tendency. 
Tending  the  herds  especially  demands  hard  labour,  and  as  a  natural  consequence 


FAMILY  AND  SOCIAL   CUSTOMS  "7 

the  patriarchal  system  has  reached  its  highest  development  among  pastoral  races  ; 
so  that  the  introduction  of  cattle-breeding  into  the  industrial  life  of  mankind 
may  well  have  played  an  important  part  in  the  extension  of  this  system. 

Closely  connected  with  marriage  under  the  influence  of  mother-right  is  the 
remarkable  custom,  which  has  lasted  to  our  own  time,  known  as  "  exogamy." 
Many  tribes  forbid  their  young  men  to  take  a  wife  from  among  their  own  body, 
thus  compelling  them  to  marry  one  of  another  tribe.  This  custom  assumes  so 
rigid  a  legal  form  that  many  tribes  in  Africa,  Australia,  Melanesia,  America,  have 
their  regular  "  wife -tribes "  out  of  which  they  always  choose  their  partners. 
Exogamy  even  reaches  so  high  as  to  the  Brahmins  of  India,  and  we  find  it  as 
a  superstition  among  the  Chinese  ;  it  penetrates  so  deeply  that  the  very  language 
of  a  race  may  be  divisible  according  to  male  and  female  descent.  Thus  L.  Adam 
reports  of  the  Carib  language  that  it  is  a  mixed  speech,  that  of  the  men  being 
deducible  from  the  Galibi  or  true  Carib,  that  of  the  women  from  the  Arawak. 
Its  twofold  nature  consists  in  the  use  by  men  or  women  of  certain  forms  and  words 
only  when  speaking  to  persons  of  their  own  sex  ;  while  on  the  neutral  ground  the 
influence  of  the  women's  Arawak  speech  predominates.  The  division  takes  a  local 
shape  where  a  village  is  divided  into  two  exogamous  halves,  or  where  two  exogamous 
villages  or  tribes  dwell  side  by  side,  which,  as  they  multiply,  similarly  form  a 
dual  society.  Over  large  districts,  even  in  the  Malay  Archipelago,  where  foreign 
influences  have  made  themselves  much  felt,  the  tribal  organisation  comes  under 
this  law,  the  rigour  of  which  extends  even  beyond  marriage,  for  all  intercourse 
within  the  prohibited  limits  is  treated  as  incestuous  and  punished  with  death. 
This  holds  among  the  Dieyerie  of  Australia.  The  often -quoted  exogamous 
group-marriage  of  the  Mount  Gambler  tribe,  where  all  intercourse  within  the 
two  half- tribes,  Krokis  and  Kumites,  is  strictly  forbidden,  but  allowed  so 
freely  between  them  that  the  two  groups  may  almost  be  said  to  be  married  to 
each  other,  appears  to  us  to  be  a  mere  procreative  hugger-mugger.  Remarkable 
traces  of  a  state  of  things  which  has  either  vaijished  or  is  preserved  only  in 
fragments,  are  visible  in  the  kinship-systems  of  the  most  various  races.  These  all 
occur  under  monogamic  or  polygamic  forms,  but  give  clear  evidence  of  the 
previous  existence  of  other  forms  of  marriage  ;  and  that  not  as  rare  curiosities, 
but  widely  extended.  Morgan  first  recognised  in  the  Iroquois  a  people  who  by 
that  time  had  reached  the  mark  of  marriage  by  couples,  but  showed  in  their 
names  for  the  degrees  of  relationship  the  traces  of  an  earlier  system.  The 
Iroquois  at  that  time  called  his  brothers'  children  "  son  "  or  "  daughter,"  while  they 
called  him  "  father '' ;  but  his  sisters'  children  were  to  him  "  nephew  "  and  "  niece," 
and  he  "  uncle  "  to  them.  This  observation  led  Morgan  to  establish  the  rule  that 
the  family  proceeds  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  form  in  proportion  as  society 
develops  to  a  higher  stage  ;  but  the  system  of  kinship  only  registers  progress 
after  long  intervals,  and  only  undergoes  fundamental  changes  when  the  idea  of 
the  family  has  fundamentally  altered.  Thus  it  seemed  possible  to  find  in  the 
names  traces  of  an  older  mode  of  reckoning  kinship  of  which  it  might  be  that 
nothing  else  had  actually  survived.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  kin-names 
of  Hawaii  may  be  referred  to  a  system  like  that  of  the  Iroquois,  but  even  wider 
in  its  employment  of  the  names  for  child,  brother,  and  sister  ;  since  there  all 
children  of  brothers  and  sisters  are  spoken  of  as  the  common  children  of  these, 
and  call  each  other  "  brother "  and  "  sister."      But  we  are  in  no  way  justified  in 


ii8  THE  HISTORY  OF  2rANKIND 

seeing  in  this  a  survival  of  what  Morgan,  and  after  him — not  without  an 
ulterior  purpose — Marx,  Engels,  and  the  rest,  have  called  the  "consanguine  family," 
— that  is,  a  family  in  which  the  only  bar  to  intercourse  was  as  between  relatives 
belonging  to  different  generations — grandparent,  parent,  child,  etc.  The  notion 
of  incest  is  bound  up  with  the  very  lowest  forms  of  marriage  of  which  we  have 
any  knowledge,  and  the  bar  has  been  fixed  far  further  back  than  in  our  conception 
of  marriage.  Still  less  does  the  so-called  Punalua  family — in  which  brothers  and 
sisters,  and,  as  a  probable  further  consequence,  their  children,  were  excluded  from 
marriage — result  from  this  Iroquois  kinship -system.  In  Hawaii  this  form  of 
marriage  existed  even  in  the  present  century,  whereby  sisters  were  the  common 
wives  of  several  husbands  (^Punalua),  or  brothers  the  common  husbands  of  several 
wives.  The  ancient  Britons  may  well  have  had  a  similar  form  of  marriage  ;  but 
on  this  subject  we  have  no  information  to  carry  us  farther.  All  attempts  to 
prove  the  existence  of  absolute  promiscuity  may  be  regarded  as  unsuccessful ; 
Bachofen's  researches  take  us  back  to  group-marriage  at  farthest.  The  traces 
of  a  community  of  women,  such  as  surrender  taking  the  form  of  a  religious  rite  ; 
that  curious  feast  held  by  the  Congo  natives  at  the  conclusion  of  the  three 
days'  mourning  for  the  dead,  at  which  the  widow  yields  herself  to  the  mourners, 
and  many  similar  customs,  can  indeed  be  explained  as  survivals  from  such  a  state 
of  things  ;  but  it  seems  more  natural  to  regard  them  as  relapses  from  the 
monopoly  of  women  in  single  or  polygamous  marriages  which  is  constantly  being 
attempted,  but  always  meets  with  opposition,  especially  in  regions  where  the 
sexual  instinct  is  less  restrained.  Similar  relapses,  though  in  other  forms  and 
more  concealed  from  view,  are  not  unknown  even  under  our  own  code  of  morals. 
Questions  concerning  property  and  society  will  make  us  recur  to  this  subject. 

Primogeniture  is  no  more  universal  than  the  tracing  of  descent  in  the  male 
line.  No  doubt  we  find  it  strongly  marked  among  most  races,  even  to  the  point  of 
the  parents,  when  old,  yielding  obedience  to  the  eldest  son,  while  the  brothers  have 
to  work  for  him  like  slaves  ;  but  we  also  find  privileges  conceded  to  the  youngest, 
as  in  the  custom  of  "  borough-English,"  still  not  wholly  extinct  in  this  country. 
In  this  we  may  see  a  regard  for  the  interests  of  the  mother  and  the  family,  who 
will  gain  most  by  the  supremacy  of  the  son  who  is  likely  to  remain  longest  under 
their  tutelage.  "  Patria  potestas  "  is,  if  only  as  a  case  of.  the  right  of  the  strongest, 
very  considerable  wherever  the  family  tie  is  not  extremely  lax.  In  Africa 
children  allow  their  fathers  to  sell  them  without  a  murmur.  On  the  other  hand, 
among  Negroes  the  love  of  parents  for  children  is  developed  in  a  beautiful  degree, 
and  these  races,  considered  low  in  the  scale,  often  enjoy  a  most  closely-welded 
and  charming  family  life  under  the  influence  of  paternal  authority  and  children's 
affection. 

The  modes  of  contracting  marriage  offer  many  traces,  persisting  to  the  present 
day,  of  a  former  state  of  things.  A  present  given  in  many  cases  by  the  founder 
of  a  new  household  to  his  father-in-law,  stamps  the  contract  as  a  form  of  purchase, 
while  not  excluding  the  traces  of  capture.  The  purchase  of  a  wife  is  often 
concluded  while  she  is  still  a  child,  nay,  occasionally,  while  she  is  still  unborn. 
It  happens  not  uncommonly  that  the  lady's  inclinations  are  also  considered  but 
as  a  rule,  parental  dispositions  are  absolute.  The  wooer  usually  expresses  his 
wishes  by  the  presentation  of  a  gift  to  the  parents  of  the  girl  he  has  chosen  •  and 
its   acceptance  or  rejection   is   taken  as  their  decision.      Intermediary  suitors  are 


FAMILY.  AND  SOCIAL   CUSTOMS  119 

often  employed.  Marriages  "  on  approval "  are  also  frequently  found  ;  in  cases 
where  things  turn  out  satisfactorily,  the  course  is,  first  the  offering  of  presents  to 
the  girl,  then  the  building  and  furnishing  of  the  hut,  then  the  gift  to  the  bride's 
parents.  The  nuptials  are  then  performed  either  by  priests,  or  by  the  parents,  or 
the  grandmothers  of  the  young  people  ;  or,  in  their  absence,  by  any  older  relations. 
The  ceremony  includes  symbols  of  the  bride's  loss  of  her  freedom,  of  her  regret  at 
leaving  her  parental  home,  of  the  expected  joy  of  motherhood,  and  so  forth  ;  but 
consists  mainly  of  merriment.  In  many  cases  the  religious  element  does  not 
enter,  but  where  it  does  appear,  it  is  in  the  form  of  an  invocation  of  the  souls  of 
ancestors,  whose  abiding  interest  in  the  family  concerns  is  everywhere  presumed. 
Blood-relationship  is  among  most  races  regarded  as  a  bar  to  marriage  ;  yet  the  heir 
often  takes  over  his  father's  wives.  Divorce  is  in  these  cases  wont  to  be  as  easily 
concluded  as  marriage,  the  chief  difficulty  being  the  recovery  of  the  purchase- 
money.  Wherever  polygamy  is  most  widely  extended,  the  marriage  relation  is 
most  lax  ;  until  we  meet  with  conditions  such  as  the  most  advanced  corruption  of 
civilization  does  not  attain  to.  It  has  been  said,  not  unjustly,  of  the  Polynesians, 
that  the  great  laxity  of  their  family-ties  has  played  an  important  part  in  their 
migration.  What  Cook  said  of  the  father  of  a  New  Zealand  boy  who  was  about 
to  leave  him  without  hope  of  return,  is  true  of  many  :  "  He  would  have  parted 
with  more  emotion  from  his  dog."  The  slave-trade  again  has  increased  the  ease 
with  which  the  bond  between  husband  and  wife,  parent  and  child,  has  so  often 
been  loosed  ;  while  adoption  rends  the  natural  dependence  in  favour  of  an 
unnatural  tyrannical  law. 

The  capture  of  women  is  no  longer  practised  as  the  sole  means  of  acquiring 
wives  and  founding  families  ;  though  in  the  wars  of  savage  races  often  only  the 
younger  women  are  spared,  and  these  are  taken  as  booty,  like  Andromache,  to 
the  homes  of  the  victors.  But  stories  like  that  of  the  Rape  of  the  Sabines,  or  of 
the  daughters  of  Shiloh  by  the  Benjamites,  declare  plainly  that  a  different  state 
of  things  once  existed  ;  and  a  whole  series  of  curious  customs  can  only  be  ex- 
plained by  a  traditional  objection  to  seeing  daughters,  sisters,  women  of  the  tribe, 
carried  off.  So,  too,  when  we  find  at  the  present  day,  whether  among  Arabs, 
South  Slaves,  or  others,  the  bride  making  a  show  of  yielding  to  compulsion, 
against  her  own  desire,  or  the  marriage  procession  embellished  by  a  fight  between 
the  bride's  people  and  those  of  the 'bridegroom,  culminating  in  the  carrying  off  of 
the  bride,  we  have  obvious  traces  of  what  was  once  conducted  in  a  different 
spirit.  The  less  reality  there  is  in  the  custom,  the  more  capriciously  does  the 
symbolism  work.  In  a  district  of  East  Melanesia  the  boys  of  the  village  await 
the  bride's  relations  and  shoot  harmlessly  at  them  with  arrows.  Or  the  sham 
fight  between  the  bride's  and  bridegroom's  people  does  not  take  place  till  after 
the  wedding  feast.  Not  only  has  the  bridegroom  to  buy  his  bride,  but  she  must 
pay  for  permission  to  go  in  peace.  To  the  same  class  perhaps  belongs  the 
custom  prevalent  in  the  Loyalty  Islands,  whereby  the  newly-married  pair  may 
not  see  each  other  in  public,  nor  dwell  in  the  same  house,  but  have  to  meet 
secretly. 

Contrary  to  the  notion  that  a  comparison  of  the  various  forms  of  marriage' 
will  reveal  a  great  development,  resembling  as  it  were  a  pedigree,  showing  a  pro- 
gressive contraction  of  the  area  within  which  intercourse  was  permitted,  from  its 
original  identity  with  the  whole  tribe,  by  the  exclusion   of  first  nearer,  then  more 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


distant  kindred,  until  monogamy  at  last  was  reached  ;  we  see  in  all  the  forms 
various  attempts  to  do  justice  to  the  hardest  of  all  social  problems,  one  of 
which,  indeed,  no  perfect  solution  is  practically  possible.  The  breeder's  motive 
for  selection,  viz.  the  repression  of  the  weakening  effects  of  in-and-in  breeding, 
by  encouraging  an  invigorating  cross-breeding,  has  unduly  influenced  this  theory 
of  development ;  races  which  did  not  breed  cattle  must  have  been  far  from 
recognising  anything  of  the  kind.  We  should  rather  say  that  we  are  here  in 
presence  of  one  of  those  cases  of  a  consistent  and  refined  development  of  a 
limited  group  of  ideas,  of  which  we  find  so  many  examples  in  the  ethnology  of 
the  natural  races.  Such  development  as  we  can  perceive  with  undoubted  clear- 
ness in  marriage  is  in  the  growth  of  sentiment  with  the  growing  cultivation  of 
the  individual,  and  the  closer  union  resulting  from  the  multiplication  of  points  of 
contact  between  the  sexes,  which  comes  with  increasing  civilization. 

In  primitive  society  woman  holds  a  position  quite  as  full  of  anomalies  as  her 
position  among  the  most  highly-civilized  races,  the  only  difference  being  that  in 
the  former  case  injustice  and  ill-treatment  appear  with  less  disguise  as  the  natural 
consequences  of  her  physically  weaker  powers.  Polygamy  alone  hardly  explains 
her  lower  position.  Even  where  monogamy  is  the  general  rule,  as  is  the  case, 
though  not  without  exceptions,  and  still  less  as  an  ordinance,  among  Negroes, 
Malays,  Indians,  and  the  northern  races,  it  is  usual  for  the  woman  to  live  in  a 
separate  part  of  the  house,  seldom  to  eat  out  of  the  same  dish  as  the  men,  and 
in  any  case,  only  after  they  have  finished.  Higher  civilization,  while  it  has 
improved  woman's  position  by  softening  the  man's  rude  instincts,  and  especially 
his  violence  and  injustice,  has  at  the  same  time,  by  depriving  her  of  the  dignity 
of  labour,  removed  the  basis  of  a  possible  firmer  position  in  society.  Has  it  not, 
indeed,  by  making  such  a  division  of  labour  as  to  give  the  more  limited,  easier, 
and  less  honourable  forms  of  it  to  the  woman,  and  exclude  her  from  warfare, 
public  or  private,  and  sport,  put  her  in  an  even  less  favourable  position  than 
Nature  intended  ?  If  we  descend  the  stages  of  civilization  we  shall  find,  as  we 
come  to  the  lower,  that  woman  is  physically  and  intellectually  more  on  a  par 
with  man.  Might  not  the  question  of  power,  or  rather  strength,  once  have  stood 
somewhat  differently  ?  At  the  stages  of  civilization  with  which  we  are  here 
concerned,  it  was  not  found  difificult  to  allot  a  position  of  authority  to  the  woman. 
We  may  recall  the  influence  of  the  priestesses'  among  the  Malays,  the  frequency 
with  which  female  sovereigns  are  found  in  Africa  and  America,  the  female  troops 
of  Dahomey,  who  are  stronger  than  the  men  and  handier  with  their  weapons. 
Despots  have  often,  like  the  present  king  of  Siam,  formed  a  bodyguard  of  women, 
believing  the  fidelity  of  female  slaves  to  be  more  trustworthy. 

Nature  has  no  doubt  implanted  elements  of  weakness  in  the  physical  organisa- 
tion of  women,  which  perhaps  civilization  only  tends  to  develop  further  ;  but 
there  can  be  no  question  that  the  fact  of  her  bearing  and  bringing  up  the  children 
is  a  great  source  of  strength  which  can  never  fail  her.  If  the  children  belong  to 
the  mother,  or  if,  according  to  the  custom  of  exogamy,  the  husband  enters  the 
wife's  family,  the  greater  influence,  based  upon  present  possession  and  the  future 
hope  of  the  stock,  lies  on  the  female  side.  That  does  not  prevent  the  hardships 
of  life  weighing  upon  her  more  than  upon  the  stronger  man  ;  but  even  so  it  must 
often  happen  that,  as  Arthur  Wright  says  of  the  Seneca  Iroquois,  the  women 
are  a  great  power  in   the   clans  and  elsewhere.      On   occasions,  he   adds,  they  can 


FAMILY  AND  SOCIAL   CUSTOMS 


even  depose  a  chief,  and  reduce  him  to  a  mere  ordinary  brave.  The  manifold 
forms  of  female  rule,  or  the  double  chieftainship,  male  or  female,  such  as  we  find 
in  Lunda,  and  traces  of  it  in  Unyoro,  point  to  a  higher  position  of  woman  at  one 
time. 

In  regard  to  sexual  morality,  comparative  observation  shows  that  in  all 
grades  of  civilization  very  different  conceptions  of  it  obtain,  but  that  these  are 
by  no  means  most  relaxed  among  the  poorest  and  most  wretched  of  natural  races  ; 
rather  in  places  where  there  is  constant  intercourse  with  the  lower  classes  of 
civilized  nations.  Apart  from  this,  however,  we  find  great  differences,  such  as  are 
hardly  to  be  explained  by  primitive  conditions,  but  are  rather  bound  up  with  the 
very  various  circumstances  of  national  life.  In  some  regions  the  utmost  freedom 
is  allowed  between  unmarried  persons,  to  the  point  of  its  being  held  creditable  to 
a  girl  to  bear  children  to  her  lovers  ;  elsewhere  wives  are  surrendered,  freely  or 
for  payment,  to  guests  ;  while  some  tribes  kill  a  girl  who  has  borne  a  child  out 
of  wedlock.  There  is  no  sharper  contrast  than  the  rigid  jealousy  wherewith  the 
Masai  guard  the  purity  of  their  maidens,  who  go  clothed  in  skins,  and  the  laxity 
which  their  easy-going  neighbours,  the  Wakamba,  display  in  regard  to  their  girls, 
who  stroll  about  without  a  rag  on  ;  but  the  former  are  a  proud  race  with  strict 
laws  and  aristocratic  organisation ;  the  latter  a  complaisant,  lazy,  scattered 
subject-race.  We  often  meet  with  the  same  contrast ;  a  strong  nation  keeps  its 
laws  on  this  subject  at  as  high  a  level  as  on  others,  a  weak  one  tends  to  license. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Masai  attach  no  importance  to  chastity  in  married  women. 
The  fact  is  that  the  influence  of  moral  ideas  upon  races  at  this  stage  is  very 
small,  and  that  such  morality  as  there  is  exists  less  in  compliance  with  any 
moral  feeling,  than  as  an  obstacle  to  the  infringement  of  private  rights.  Adultery 
is  universally  regarded  as  an  attack  upon  rights  acquired  by  the  purchase  of  the 
wife  ;  and  thus  the  action  of  the  man  who  makes  a  temporary  surrender  of  his 
wife  to  a  guest,  does  not  necessarily  shock  morality.  It  remains  to  inquire  how 
the  growth  of  this  custom  bears  upon  the  position  of  women  in  a  community  with 
"  mother-right."  No  doubt  the  influence  of  the  women  would  be  thrown  against 
it,  as  to  this  influence  is  due  the  disfavour  with  which  public  opinion  among  the 
North  American  Indians  views  facility  of  divorce.  In  general  the  less  civilized 
societies  allow  freer  play  to  the  sexual  instinct  than  do  the  higher  ;  and  accord- 
ingly among  them  we  find  less  violence  done  to  ideas  of  law  or  morality.  As 
the  bonds  which  unite  man  and  wife  are  drawn  closer  a  change  takes  place.  It 
is  at  this  point  that  professional  harlotry  appears,  as  a  means  of  averting  forms 
of  profligacy  which  might  endanger  family  ties.  In  the  form  in  which  we  find 
it  among  the  Nyam-Nyams,  it  may  no  doubt  be  regarded  as  an  indication  of 
higher  social  development ;  but  at  the  same  time  it  lowers  that  society  materially 
in  moral  worth.  Indeed,  in  disregard  of  moral  obligation,  the  most  cultivated 
society  is  on  a  level  with  the  natural  races.  The  conditions  which  lead  to 
national  decay  often  present  a  striking  parallel.  Society  in  Tahiti,  as  Cook  and 
Forster  found  it,  was  thoroughly  corrupt  and  on  the  high  road  to  decay  ;  it  was 
doomed  to  perish  neither  more  nor  less  than  that  of  Rome  under  Heliogabalus, 
or  that  of  Paris  before  the  Revolution.  Conversely  the  condition  of  the  Zulu 
nation  under  Dingaan  and  Chaka  was  one  of  rude  and  youthful  health.  Certain 
features  of  family  life  which  we  are  apt  to  consider  as  restricted  to  the  richer 
growth  of  the  affections  in  civilized  life  may  be  specially  noticed.     The  mourning 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


of  a  widow  for  her  husband,  or  of  parents  for  children,  is  expressed  with  a  vehe- 
mence which  must  partly  suggest  superstitious  ideas,  but  in  any  case  is  a  great 
act  of  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  living  for  the  sake  of  the  dead.  We  may  recall 
how  Australian  women  carry  about  the  corpse,  or  some  bones,  of  their  dead 
children  on  all  their  marches,  or  how  Melanesian  women  wear  the  mummied 
skull  of  their  departed  husbands  ;  not  to  mention  the  widespread  custom  under 
which  widows  and  slaves  follow  their  husband,  or  lord  to  the  grave. 

Motherly  love  is  so  natural  a  sentiment  that  the  modes  of  expressing  it  need 
no  authentication  ;  but  we  often  come  across  instances  of  tenderness  on  the 
father's  part  towards  his  offspring.  No  doubt  there  are  many  cases  of  cruelty, 
but  these  are  exceptions.  All  who  have  gone  deeply  into  the  question  agree  in 
praising  the  peaceful  and  kindly  way  in  which  those  of  one  household  live 
together  among  uncorrupted  natural  races,  doubly  striking  by  contrast  with 
the  dark  practices  and  disregard  of  human  life  with  which  it  often  co- exists. 
Solomon's  maxim  that  he  who  loves  his  child  chastens  him  betimes,  finds  no 
observance  among  natural  races  ;  rather  is  it  the  children  who  tyrannise  over  the 
adult.  But  even  they  seldom  quarrel  or  fight  among  themselves.  Nansen  has 
depicted  the  great  good-nature  which  prevails  among  the  Eskimos,  and  is  inclined 
to  refer  the  repose  and  peacefulness  of  family  life  mainly  to  the  intimate  associa- 
tion customary  between  mother  and  children.  The  educational  effect  of  this 
closely-knit  fellowship  upon  its  members  has  often  been  under-estimated.  But 
among  many  natural  races  life  moves  more  securely  in  fixed  lines  than  it  does 
among  the  most  highly-cultured.  The  respect  for  elders,  the  obedience  to  those 
in  authority,  the  willing  subordination,  the  apathetic  calm,  which  preserves  its 
supremacy  by  force  not  of  intellect  but  of  habit,  in  face  of  the  most  unexpected 
occurrences,  often  impress  Europeans.  The  cool  self-contained  Redskin  of  the 
Indian  tales  is  a  product  of  this  closely-knitted  society. 

The  word  Family  had,  even  in  its  original  Latin  use,  the  meaning  of  house- 
hold, the  slaves  being  included  in  it ;  and  thus  signified  a  society.  It  has  a  yet 
wider  import  among  races  in  very  various  stages  of  civilization.  By  the  compre- 
hension of  kinsfolk  of  several  generations  and  inclusion  of  strangers  in  the  position 
of  slaves,  it  broadens  out  into  an  important  element  of  society.  Among  the 
Slavonic  peoples  we  find  house-comradeship,  Zadruga  or  Bradstro,  "  brother- 
hood," embracing  several  generations  of  descendants  from  one  progenitor,  and' 
their  wives,  in  a  community  of  goods  and  labour  under  one  head,  who  need  not 
always  be  the  eldest.  Traces  of  the  same  appear  among  the  old  Germans  and 
the  Celts  ;  we  find  them  in  India,  in  the  Caucasus,  among  the  Kabyles,  and  many 
other  races  of  Africa  and  Oceania.  Where  we  know  nothing  of  their  internal 
organisation,  the  great  house  with  its  numerous  apartments  for  single  groups — 
particularly  the  "long-house"  (see  woodcut  on  p.  1 27)  indicates  their  existence.  Here 
then  we  are  in  sight  of  the  family  and  of  society.  The  family  holds  its  members 
together  with  a  bond  closer  than  that  of  marriage,  and  forms  with  them  an 
organisation  which  is  one  of  the  great  and  permanent  elements  of  society.  This 
effort  is  most  conspicuous  in  the  societies  where  mother-right  and  exogamy 
obtain  ;  in  which  the  sharp  division  on  the  basis  of  blood-relationship  divides  the 
whole  stock  into  two  halves,  which  are  at  once  family  and  society.  They  divide 
the  property,  individual  property  being  unknown  ;  and  this,  apart  from  kinship 
holds  the  society  together.      For  political   purposes   some   family  stocks   unite   in 


FAMILY  AND  SOCIAL   CUSTOMS  123 

groups,  which  may  be  compared  with  the  old  Greek  Phratrise  ;  several  of  such 
groups  form  the  highest  political  unit,  which  we  call  simply  the  tribe. 

Slavery  and  serfdom  soon  bring  about  a  further  gradation.  The  oldest 
occasion  for  slavery  was  the  compulsory  entry  into  the  society  of  foreigners,  who  in 
most  cases  would  be  prisoners  of  war.  The  custom  of  enslaving  such  prisoners  when 
the  captors  do  not  wish  to  kill  them  is  to  this  day  very  widespread,  and  indeed 
has  been  abandoned  only  by  the  most  highly  civilized  nations.  The  Masai  in  East 
Africa,  a  shepherd  tribe,  who  subsist  upon  herds  of  a  fixed  size,  and  have  neither 
labour  nor  provisions  to  spare  for  slaves,  kill  their  prisoners  ;  their  neighbours, 
the  agricultural  and  trading  Wakamba,  being  able  to  find  a  use  for  slaves,  do  not 
kill  them  ;  while  the  Wanyamwesi,  a  third  people  of  that  region,  having,  through 
their  close  connection  with  the  Arabs  of  the  coast,  a  good  market  for  slaves,  wage 
wars  on  purpose  to  acquire  them.  Here  are  three  situations  of  typical  significance. 
The  impulse  to  level  downwards  which  exists  in  primitive  societies  shows  nowhere 
more  strongly  than  in  the  position  of  relative  freedom  which  the  slaves  enjoy.  If 
there  is  no  work  for  male  slaves,  females  are  always  wanted,  and  their  issue  forms 
a  yet  lower  social  grade.  Slaves  are  also  bought  for  human  sacrifices,  and  in 
Central  Africa  the  death  of  a  chief  creates  a  brisk  demand.  Wherever  the  status 
of  slave  is  recognised,  as  it  is  among  all  pagan  nations,  it  offers  a  welcome  means 
of  expiation  ;  the  last  sacrifice  which  the  creditor  can  claim  from  his  debtor,  the 
plaintiff  from  the  defendant,  is  the  surrender  of  personal  freedom.  A  curious 
exception  is  found  among  the  Ewe  people,  where  the  insolvent  debtor  incurs  the 
penalty  of  death.  But  between  the  positions  of  slavery  for  debt  and  freedom  as 
enjoyed  by  the  masters,  lies  the  dependent  position  of  those  whom  poverty  has 
reduced  to  the  verge  of  slavery  though  nominally  free.  To  these  applies  the 
maxim  that  the  final  abolition  of  slavery  is  owing  to  the  creation,  by  means  of 
labour,  of  movable  value,  that  is,  capital,  and  thus  that  capital  and  freedom  are 
sisters. 

There  is  a  great  distinction  between  slavery  as  a  national  institution  and  as 
a  means  of  preparing  goods  for  trade.  If  Arabs  and  other  slave-holders  treat 
their  slaves  well,  the  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the  participation  of  both  slave  and 
master  in  the  general  indolence.  So  long  as  no  great  differences  of  rank  from 
the  point  of  view  of  culture  exist,  not  much  demand  will  be  made  upon  the  slave's 
labour  ;  but  as  society  progresses  and  wants  increase  his  lot  becomes  harder,  and 
it  is  in  no  w.ay  ameliorated  by  humanising  progress  generally.  The  interval 
which  separates  master  and  slave  increases  in  proportion  to  the  desire  of  gain  ;  so 
that,  as  Livingstone  says,  no  improvement  in  the  slave's  position  can  be  expected, 
even  if  the  slave-holder  does  not  return  to  or  remain  in  barbarism.  If  we  look 
at  Africa,  we  see  that  among  all  merchandise  slaves  and  women  stand  in  the  closest 
relation  to  the  requirements  of  the  negro.  Their  sphere  is  a  large  one  ;  for  all 
that  does  not  concern  trade,  fighting,  or  hunting,  is  the  business  of  the  women  and 
slaves.  These  form  the  favourite  merchandise,  the  most  important  standard  of 
property,  the  best  investment  for  capital.  Above  all  they  are  the  articles  easiest 
to  provide  in  exchange  for  goods  in  request — at  one  time,  indeed,  the  only  medium 
of  exchange  beside  ivory  that  Africa  possessed. 

When  men  are  a  form  of  capital,  their  tendency"  is,  like  other  capital,  to  accumu- 
late ;  for  the  desire  of  owning  slaves  is  just  as  insatiable  as  the  craving  for  property 
and  wealth  in  any  other  form.     Therein  lies  the  greatest  danger  of  this  institution. 


124  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

Excessive  slavery  is  one  of  the  causes  which  destroy  states  ;  it  was  so  in  Rome 
of  old,  it  is  so  in  Africa  and  parts  of  America  to-day.  It  splits  up  the  nation,  of 
which  an  ever-increasing  proportion  falls  into  slavery  ;  it  brings  on  war,  devasta- 
tion, tyranny,  human  sacrifices,  cannibalism.  It  has  been  alleged  as  an  advantage 
possessed  by  the  powerful  conquering  nation  of  the  Fans  in  West  Africa,  that  they 
keep  no  slaves  to  weaken  their  warlike  force.  The  last  result  is  the  depopulating 
and  enfeebling  of  wide  areas.  If  we  may  assume,  with  Father  Bauer,  that  before 
the  conclusion  of  Sir  Bartle  Frere's  treaty  in  1873,  65,000  slaves  were  annually 
imported  into  Zanzibar,  this  means,  allowing  for  those  who  escaped  or  were  left 
behind  on  the  way,  that  some  100,000  were  torn  from  their  homes  in  the  same 
period. 

Nearly  allied  to  slaves  are  those  despised  and  degraded  portions  of  the  popula- 
tion, who  live  as  a  sharply-separated  and  deep-lying  stratum,  under  a  conquering  race. 
Almost  every  race  of  Asia  or  Africa  which  has  made  any  progress  towards  higher 
development  embraces  some  such,  not  always  differing  ethnologically.  For  that 
very  reason,  however,  the  social  difference  is  all  the  more  strictly  maintained,  and 
often  enough  leads  to  further  divisions  among  the  lower  classes  themselves.  Thus 
in  some  parts  of  Southern  Arabia  four,  in  others  two,  classes  of  Pariahs  are  dis- 
tinguished ;  some  of  them  degraded  by  birth,  others  through  following  unclean 
trades.  The  caste  divisions  of  India  show  the  same  distinctions,  for  in  the  lowest 
castes  we  equally  find  some  degraded  by  birth,  some  by  occupation.  Both  causes 
meet  in  our  gipsies,  in  the  Yetas  of  Japan,  and  others  ;  and  it  is  at  once  interesting 
and  melancholy  to  see  how  in  North  America  numerous  remains  of  the  Indian 
population  have  sunk  to  a  like  level.  Here  the  cause  of  the  degradation  was  the 
invasion  by  a  foreign  race.  A  particular  form  of  this  inequality  is  the  subjection 
of  whole  races  to  a  conquering  plundering  horde.  In  some  parts  of  the  Sahara 
the  Arabs  and  Tibboos  look  upon  certain  oases  and  their  inhabitants  as  their 
private  property.  They  turn  up  at  harvest  time  to  take  their  tribute,  that  is  to 
plunder  and  rob ;  and  in  the  interval  leave  their  subjects  to  misery  and  the  task 
of  planting  for  their  benefit.  In  course  of  time  an  assimilation  may  result  from 
this  gradation,  though  the  family  regarded  as  a  kin-group  seeks  to  maintain  an 
attitude  of  reserve  and  opposition  to  this,  by  objection  to  misalliances.  But  it 
may  also,  by  the  introduction  of  economical  causes,  and  local  dispersion,  lead  to 
a  sharp  and  permanent  separation,  till  we  find  the  hunters  of  the  Central  African 
forests,  the  so-called  Pygmies,  appearing  as  a  peculiar  social  race  beside  their 
agricultural  masters  and  protectors. 

The  tribal  membership  becomes  connected  with  the  realm  of  the  unseen  by 
means  of  special  stock-symbols— known  as  Totems  among  the  American  Indians, 
Atuas  among  the  Polynesians — which  have  been  promoted  to  the  position  of  tutelary 
spirits.  Among  the  Samoan  stocks  we  find  Atuas  using  the  shovel,  Aanas  the 
lance,  Latuamasangas  the  whisk,  Mononos  the  fishing-net,  as  imparted  by  the  god 
Pili.  More  especially  are  animals,  preferably  reptiles,  fish,  and  birds  sacred  to 
the  gods  ;  and  each  member  of  a  stock  bears  the  emblem  tattooed  on  his  person 
not  only  with  a  view  to  his  recognition  and  classification,  but  as  an  amulet  and 
an  object  of  reverence.  Among  Indians  and  Australians  we  also  find  the  influence 
of  the  totems  in  proper  names.'  G.  Forster  called  attention  long  ago  to  the  fact 
that  among  the  Polynesians  personal  names  are  often  taken  from  animals  and 
compared   this   with   a  similar   custom  among   the   North  American    Indians       A 


FAMILY  AND  SOCIAL   CUSTOMS  125 

Tahitian  chief  was  called  Otu,  the  heron  ;  a  Marquesan,  Honu,  the  tortoise. 
These  are  almost  certainly  clan-names,  such  as  we  find  also  among  African  tribes, 
Bechuanas,  Ashantees,  etc.  The  attitude  adopted  towards  the  stock-symbol  is 
very  various ;  sometimes  it  is  an  object  of  dread,  sometimes  of  honour  and 
protection.  Among  some  stocks  it  is  a  capital  offence  to  injure  the  original  of 
the  symbol ;  while  in  Aurora  (Banks  Island)  a  member  of  the  Veve,  whose  cog- 
nisance is  the  cuttle-fish,  so  far  from  objecting  to  eat  it,  thinks  the  capture  of 
it  particularly  lucky.  Similar  totem-stocks  in  different  tribes  lend  each  other 
mutual  assistance,  and  thus  the  system  affords  a  ground  for  close  alliances  between 
distant  tribes. 

Secret  societies  also  ramify  through  the  community,  creating  a  division  into 
adepts  and  uninitiated.  They  have  a  natural  tendency  to  appear  in  communities 
which  lack  any  great  public  motive  for  a  hierarchy  of  ranks.  They  draw  artificial 
boundaries,  wear  masks  of  which  they  alone  understand  the  meaning,  surround 
themselves  with  religious  forms,  take  control  of  important  functions,  such  as  the 
initiation  of  young  persons  arriving  at  maturity,  or  the  exaction  of  penalties  for 
law-breaking,  reminding  us  (and  in  this  latter  respect  both  in  their  nature  and 
their  operations)  of  the  German  Vehmegericht.  Part  of  the  duty  of  these  secret 
societies  and  other  bodies  consists  in  the  maintenance  of  traditions.  If  there  is 
no  other  organisation  for  this  purpose,  their  members  are  systematically  instructed 
in  the  subject. 

No  race  is  actually  communistic  ;  but  there  is  so  much  communism  in  the 
institutions  of  savage  races,  that  it  has  often  appeared  more  important  to  combat 
this  than  to  introduce  Christianity.  Missionaries  have,  no  doubt,  been  too  ready 
to  find  in  communism,  which  does  not  require  a  man  to  put  all  his  strength  into 
his  work,  the  ground  of  various  undesirable  characteristics,  as  in  Samoa  of  the 
tendency  to  intrigue  which  enlivens  the  native  indolence.  We  shall  come  across 
institutions  which  are  deliberately  designed  to  prevent  the  undue  amassing  of 
capital.  In  Polynesia  the  effect  of  these  has  been  decidedly  good  in  rendering 
difficult  the  admission,  with  mischievous  rapidity,  of  European  goods.  Property 
shows  in  its  relations  a  natural  analogy  with  family  no  less  than  with  social 
institutions  ;  thus  as  we  find  remains  of  group-marriage  beside  monogamy,  so  we 
find  traces  of  common  ownership  side  by  side  with  individual  ownership.  When  a 
member  of  a  family  community,  which  unites  its  forces  to  till  the  common  land 
and  shares  the  produce,  brings  a  piece  of  ground  under  cultivation,  this  becomes 
his  own  private  property  with  right  of  bequest.  A  boat  is  common  property, 
tackle  or  fish-hooks  personal  and  private.  Especially  among  nomad,  and  there- 
fore thinly-scattered,  races  the  notion  of  private  property  is  unequally  developed 
in  different  directions.  The  first  thing  that  makes  a  European,  among  the 
pastoral  races  of  Africa  or  the  hunting  tribes  of  North  America,  feel  that  he 
has  left  the  constraints  of  civilization  behind  him,  is  the  way  in  which  rights  of 
property  are  in  some  cases  neglected.  They  stick  to  their  herds  to  the  point  of 
miserliness,  but  insist  upon  property  in  land  only  so  far  as  they  want  it  for 
pasture.  Many  peoples  respect  property  in  locked  chests,  but  hold  what  is  lying 
about  to  be  as  free  as  air.  If  my  team  is  tired,  I  unyoke  where  I  will ;  I  let 
my  cattle  graze  wherever  I  think  I  have  found  grass  for  them.  I  cook  my  meal 
with  the  nearest  wood,  asking  no  man's  leave  ;  and  no  man  looks  upon  it  as  an 
infringement  of  his  rights,  or  an  injury  to  his  property.      If  I  like  the  place  where 


126  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

I  have  halted,  or  find  anything  to  attract  me,  such  as  a  copious  spring,  good 
pasture-land,  or  a  bit  of  fertile  garden-ground,  I  can  stay  there  as  long  as  I 
please,  and  build  myself  as  big  a  house  as  I  like.  But  in  any  case,  if  I  settle  in 
a  particular  spot,  I  must  allow  others  to  find  the  spring  copious  and  the  pasturage 
abundant,  and  to  come  there  with  their  herds  ;  and  I  must  come  to  an  under- 
standing with  them  about  the  use  of  it.  The  Hereros  of  Damaraland,  according 
to  Buttner,  have  a  way,  in  spite  of  their  communism,  of  making  an  unpopular 
newcomer  dislike  his  quarters  by  the  simple  artifice  of  driving  all  their  flocks  and 
herds  into  the  neighbourhood  of  his  residence.  As  soon  as  he  has  had  enough 
of  the  damage  and  devastation  which  is  thus  caused,  he  clears  out.  The  exact 
contrary  is  seen  in  the  thickly-peopled  region  of  the  Upper  Nile,  where  lakes  and 
ponds,  which  yield  fish  and  lotus-seeds  (almost  the  sole  sustenance  of  these  fishing- 
people)  in  profusion,  are  respected  as  valuable  property,  just  as  are  cornfields  and 
vineyards  in  Europe.  The  Indian  buffalo-hunters  of  the  prairies  confine  them- 
selves to  settled  natural  boundaries.  To  the  present  day  the  Bechuanas  pay  toll 
to  the  Bushmen  on  the  game  which  they  take,  under  the  plea  that  the  latter 
were  the  original  owners  of  the  hunting-grounds.  The.  Hereros,  of  whose  half- 
developed  proprietary  instinct  we  have  just  given  an  example,  carefully  avoid  any 
formal  surrender  of  their  property  to  strangers  ;  a  full  renunciation  of  the  use  of 
their  land  is  inconceivable  to  them.  From  the  idea  of  tribal  possession  arises  the 
notion  common  in  Africa  that  the  tribal  chief  is  the  sole  owner  of  the  soil,  and 
accordingly  the  members  of  the  tribe  pay  such  a  tax  to  him  for  the  use  of  it  as 
may  be  agreed  upon. 

The  Spaniards  of  the  sixteenth  century  tell  us  that  no  Indian  had  any  free 
disposal  of  land,  but  only  with  the  assent  of  his  tribe.  In  Oceania  the  transition 
from  one  form  of  ownership  to  the  other  seems  to  be  taking  place  under  our  eyes, 
and,  just  as  happened  with  the  advance  of  white  settlers  on  Indian  soil,  uppn  the 
basis  of  labour  done  in  clearing  and  cultivation.  Hunting  leads  to  tribal  owner- 
ship only  ;  and  even  the  Australians  and  Eskimo,  distributed  in  the  proportion  of 
one  to  2000  square  miles  or  so,  lay  claim  to  certain  tracts  of  land  on  behalf  of  the 
family  or  tribe,  and  regard  as  an  enemy  any  one  who  enters  or  uses  these  terri- 
tories without  leave.  The  thinness  of  population  usually  found  when  we  come  down 
to  the  lower  stages,  will  for  the  most  part  allow  of  abundant  elbow-room  ;  but  it 
is  obvious  that  a  family  subsisting  by  the  chase  wants  more  soil  than  one  of  agricul- 
turists, and  equally  so  that  pastoral  nomads  demand  broader  areas  than  settled 
cattle-breeders.  These  contrasts  have  prevailed  at  all  times  and  in  all  countries ; 
and  when  we  come  to  the  races  of  the  steppe,  we  shall  see  that  important  historical 
consequences  follow  upon  this  demand  for  land.  The  hereditary  dislike  of  the 
Indians  towards  the  partitioning  of  their  lands  into  individual  properties,  as  well 
as  towards  the  sale  of  superfluous  territory,  has  contributed  much  to  the  difficulties 
of  their  position  in  regard  to  the  white  man. 

The  effect  of  labour  in  creating  property  does  not  stop  with  the  fencing-in  of 
a  forest  clearing.  According  as  labour  attaches  itself  to  the  soil,  or  only  passes 
lightly  over  it,  its  results  differ  fundamentally.  Hunting,  fishing,  nomad  pastoral 
life,  create  for  the  most  part  a  mere  transitory  possession,  which  takes  no  pains  to 
store  or  spare  the  source  whence  it  draws.  In  agriculture,  on  the  contrary,  there 
is  a  constant  strengthening  and  deepening,  which  acts  not  least  powerfully  through 
the  other  branches  of  human  activity  which  it  keeps  steadily  going.      All  higher 


FAMILY  AND  SOCIAL   CUSTOMS 


127 


development  of  human  powers  rests  upon  this  steady  labour  and  the  storage  of 
its  fruits. 

It  is  just  in  the  lowest  stages  of  civilization  that  the  amassing  of  wealth  is  a 
matter  of  the  greatest  importance,  for  without  wealth  there  is  no  leisure,  and 
without  leisure  no  ennobling  of  the  form  of  life,  no  intellectual  progress.  It  is 
not  till  production  materially  and  permanently  outstrips  consumption  that  there 
can  be  any  superabundance  of  property.  This,  according  to  the  laws  of  political 
economy,  tends  to  increase,  and  allow  an  intelligent  class  to  come  into  existence. 
An  absolutely  poor  race  develops  no  culture.    But  under  the  protection  of  civilization 


Interior  of  a  house  in  Korido,  New  Guinea.      (After  Raffray. ) 

more  men  will  be  born  and  grow  up  than  the  soil  affords  room  for.  The  faster 
this  disproportion  increases,  the  greater  will  be  the  gap  between  Haves  and 
Havenots,  rich  and  poor.  In  hot  countries,  where  man  requires  less  nourishment, 
and  production  is  at  the  same  time  easier  than  in  cold  regions,  the  population 
will  multiply  more  quickly.  Men  become  many,  work  scarce,  therefore  wages 
will  be  abnormally  small,  life  poverty-stricken,  misery  great.  In  the  cooler  zones 
men  want  stronger  food,  while  the  land  produces  less  of  it,  and  thus  maintains 
fewer  persons  ;  the  individual  has  to  work  harder,  with  the  result  that  more  is 
done  and  wages  are  higher.  The  relations  between  harder  labour  and  higher 
wages  is  calculated  to  narrow  the  distinction  between  labourers  and  owners  ;  while, 
on  the  contrary,  the  indolence  of  the  dweller  in  the  tropics  increases  this  distinction, 
when  it  is  once  established,  to  an  enormous  degree.  In  European  countries  we 
see  advantages  of  soil  and  climate  fully  compensated  by  the  excellent  disposition 
of  men  who  have  to  work,  whose  activity  guarantees  the  progress  of  civilization 
more   securely  than    natural   wealth    could    do.     Natural    forces,   with    all    their 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


grandeur,  are  essentially  limited  and  stationary  ;  the  intellectual  force  of  man  is 
inexhaustible.  The  best  soil  is  worked  out  at  last,  but  into  the  place  of  an 
exhausted  generation  of  mankind  there  is  always  a  new  one  ready  to  step,  full 
of  youthful  vigour.  Resting  on  this  basis,  civilization  is  always  most  capable  of 
development  among  the  dwellers  in  the  temperate  zones.  But  this  force  had  to 
be  developed  in  slow,  steady  labour  ;  and  the  development  of  civilization  is  before 
all  things  a  progressive  training  of  every  man  to  work. 

Undoubtedly  every  man  must  labour  in  order  to  live  ;  but  if  he  likes  to  live 
in  misery,  he  need  not  labour  much.  The  total  sum  of  labour  performed  by  the 
savage  is  often  not  less  than  that  performed  by  the  civilized  man  ;  but  he  does  it 
by  fits  and  starts  as  the  humour  takes  him,  and  not  in  a  regular  fashion.  The  life 
of  the  Bushman  is  an  alternation  of  hunting  expeditions,  on  which  he  often 
pursues  the  herds  of  wild  animals  for  days  together  with  extreme  toil,  and 
of  gorging  on  the  game  he  has  taken,  ending  in  slothful  repletion,  until  hunger 


Ashantee  drinking  cups  of  human  slcuUs.     (British  Museum. ) 

forces  him  to  new  exertions.  Regular  work  at  high  pressure  is  what  the  savage 
abhors  ;  hence  comes  that  trait  of  obstinate  apathy  in  his  countenance  which 
is  an  infallible  means  of  distinguishing  the  spurious  from  the  genuine  Indian. 
For  the  same  reason  he  hates  to  learn  a  handicraft.  The  Negro's  passion  for 
trade,  well  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  in  Sierra  Leone  almost  every  fifth  person 
is  a  shopkeeper,  springs  to  a  great  extent  from  this  distaste. 

Cannibalism,  which  is  found  in  every  quarter  of  the  earth,  and  was  once  more 
widely  spread  than  now — for  even  Europe  contains  prehistoric  remains  and 
traditions  pointing  to  its  prevalence — is  not  peculiar  to  the  lowest  stages  of  civiliza- 
tion, nor  yet  a  phenomenon  due  to  a  single  cause.  Peoples  like  the  Monbuttus, 
the  Battaks,  the  Maoris  are  among  the  highest  of  the  races  to  which  they  belong. 
But  they  are  well  off  for  men,  and  have  not  risen  high  enough  to  make  a  good 
use  of  their  superfluous  population  by  increasing  their  economic  production. 
Human  life  is  held  cheap  among  them.  Now  cannibalism  presumes  men  for 
eating ;  and  therefore  we  find  it  either  where  the  population  is  dense,  or  where 
a  people  has  the  power  to  get  plenty  of  slaves.  Among  the  Bangalas  there  are 
more  slaves  than  are  wanted  for  the  labour,  so  that  meat  is  abundant.  Another 
cause  is  the  sharp  separation  between  one  race  and  another,  which  causes 
strangers  to  be  regarded  as  enemies,  and  allows  any  use  to  be  made  of  them, 
even  that  of  supplying  nourishment.  Within  an  exclusive  family-stock  or  in 
a  group  consisting  of  such  stocks,  cannibalism  would  have  seemed  as  inconceivable 


THE  STATE 


129 


as  incest ;  so   that    if  the  practice   has  in  recent  years  infected  islands  of  the 
Solomon  group,  it  is  a  fact  of  the  same  class  as  the  relaxation  of  social  order 
which  has  spread    over  the  same  region    from    a   similar   direction.      Since   the 
introducers  of  both  innovations  are  the   Polynesians,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that 
there  is  a  deep-lying  connection  between  them  ;  and  similarly  we  may  account 
for  the  uneven,  disconnected  spread  of  cannibalism,  which   was  found    to  exist 
even    before    the    rapidly    increased    opposition    to    it    caused    by    Christian    and 
Mussulman  influence.      Further  motives  are  revenge,  which  delights  to  eat  its  foe  ; 
and  envy,  which  hopes  by  so  doing  to  acquire  his  more  desirable  characteristics. 
To  people  whose   loose  style  of  building   makes 
prisons   untrustworthy,  the   idea    of  imprisonment 
for    life    does    not    readily    occur,    so    that    capital 
punishment     flourishes.       Besides     these     reasons, 
cannibalism   is  closely  involved  in  the  whole  net- 
work of  cannibal  customs  ;  embracing  first  human 
sacrifice,  then  the  employment  of  portions  of  the 
human   frame   in    the   ritual   of  consecrations   and 
witchcraft,  and  lastly  the  preservation   and  use  of 
human  remains,  skulls  for  drinking-cups,  bones  for 
daggers,   teeth  for  necklaces.      This   playing   with 
human  flesh  and  bones  would  be  the  first  step  to 
overcoming   a  natural   disgust.      When   a  chief  in 
the  Society  Islands  swallowed  a  human  eye  on  a 
festive  occasion,  cannibalism   was    not  entirely  at 
an  end  in  those  regions.    We  cannot  always  safely 
infer  cannibalism  from  the  names  of  races,  as  these 
were  frequently  given  by  way  of  insult.      The   indulgence   in   the   practice   from 
necessity,  which  is  not  unknown  among  Europeans,  is   quite   intelligible  among 
races   which,  like   many  Australian   and   Arctic  tribes,  suffer  every  year  or  two, 
or  continuously,  from   famine  ;  and   need  only  be  noticed   as  contributing  to  its 
maintenance  and  extension.     For  where  it  has  once  got  a  footing,  its  attraction 
increases,  till  we  find  races  among  whom  human  flesh  is  an  article  of  trade,  and 
funerals  are  almost  unknown. 


Human  bone  m  the  fork  of  a  branch  ;  a 
cannibal  memento  from  Fiji.  (Leip- 
zig Museum  of  Ethnology. ) 


§  13.  THE  STATE 

All  races  live  in  some  kind  of  civil  union — Development  of  states — Farmers  and  shepherds  as  founders  of 
states — Distinctive  marks  of  the  prhnitive  foundations-^Cause  of  arbitrary  power — Power  of  the  chiefs — 
War — Causes  of  its  frequency — Ruinous  effects  of  a  permanent  state  of  war — Universal  mistrust — Rarity 
of  alliances — Sham  wars — Frontiers — Loose  cohesion  of  primitive  states. 


No  race  is  without  political  organisation,  even  though  it  be  so  lax  as  among  the 
Bushmen,  whose  little  bands  united  for  hunting  or  plunder  are  occasionally  without 
leaders  ;  or  as  we  find  among  other  degraded  or  scattered  tribes,  who  are  often 
held  together  only  by  superstition  and  want.  What  sociologists  call  individualism 
has  never  been  found  anywhere  in  the  world  as  a  feature  in  any  race.  When 
ancient  races  fall  to  pieces  new  ones  quickly  form  themselves  out  of  the  fragments. 

K 


13° 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


This  process  is  constantly  going  on.  "  Each  individual  stock,"  says  Lichtenstein, 
"  is  in  some  measure  only  a  transitory  phenomenon.  It  will  in  course  of  time  be 
swallowed  up  by  one  more  powerful,  or  if  more  fortunate  will  split  up  into  several 
smaller  hordes  which  go  off  in  different  directions,  and,  after  a  few  generations, 

know  no  more  of  each  other." 
These  political  mutations 
have  always  the  character  of 
a  re-crystallisation,  not  of  a 
shapeless  breaking  up.  It  is 
only  seldom  that  the  organ- 
ism is  of  long  duration.  One 
of  the  marks  of  the  civilized 
man  is  that  he  accustoms 
himself  to  the  pressure  of  the 
laws  in  the  fulfilling  of  which 
he  is  himself  practically  in- 
terested. But  if  a  compara- 
tively well-ordered  constitu- 
tion has  been  founded  among 
negroes,  another  community 
is  sure  soon  to  make  its  ap- 
pearance on  the  frontier  com- 
posed of  persons  belonging 
to  the  same  stock  who  are 
subject  to  no  ordinances,  and 
these  lawless  outcasts  often 
obtain  through  their  freedom 
from  every  legal  restraint  and 
every  regard  for  tribal  rela- 
tions, even  through  the  con- 
sideration which  attracts  to 
them  all  the  boldest  and 
neediest  men  from  neigh- 
bouring tribes,  a  force  which 
is  capable  of  converting  the 
robber  tribe  into  a  conquer- 
ing, state-founding,  and  ruling 
people.  Plunder  and  conquest 
pass  easily  into  one  another. 
In  all  countries  of  which  we  know  the  history,  predatory  tribes  have  played  an 
important  part. 

Most  of  what  we  know  of  the  history  of  the  natural  races  is  the  history 
of  their  wars.  The  first  importation  of  firearms,  which  permitted  unimportant 
powers  to  rise  rapidly,  marks  the  most  sharply-defined  epoch  in  the  history  of 
all  negro  states.  What  Wissmann  says  about  the  Kioko,  "with  them  came 
firearms  and  therewith  the  formation  of  powerful  kingdoms,"  is  true  of  all.  Is  not 
this  constant  fighting  the  primitive  condition  of  man  in  its  lowest  manifestation  ? 
To  this  it  may  be  answered  that  hitherto  our  own  peace  has  never  been  anything 


Zulu  chief  in  full  war-dress.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession 
of  Dr.  Wangemann. ) 


THE   STATE  131 


but  armed,  but  among  us  serious  outbreaks  of  the  warlike  impulse  are  interrup- 
tions in  longer  intervals  of  rest  which  are  enjoined  by  the  conditions  of  civiliza- 
tion, while  among  the  races  of  which  we  are  speaking,  a  condition  like  our  mediaeval 
"  club  law  "  is  very  often  permanent.  Yet  even  so  it  must  be  pointed  out  that 
among  barbarians  also  there  are  peaceful  races  and  peace-loving  rulers.  Let  us 
not  forget  that  the  bloodiest  and  most  ruinous  wars  waged  by  the  natural  races 
have  been  those  which  they  have  carried  on  not  among  themselves  but  with 
Europeans,  and  that  nothing  has  kindled  violence  and  cruelty  among  them  in 
such  a  high  degree  as  has  the  slave  trade,  instigated  by  the  avarice  of  more  highly 
civilized  strangers,  with  its  horrible  consequence  of  slave -hunting.  When  the 
most  charitably  just  of  all  men  who  have  criticised  the  natural  races,  the  peaceable 
David  Livingstone,  could  write  in  his  last  journal  these  words  :  "  The  principle  of 
Peace  at  any  Price  leads  to  loss  of  dignity  and  injustice  ;  the  fighting  spirit  is  one 
of  the  necessities  of  life.  When  men  have  little  or  none  of  it  they  are  exposed 
to  unworthy  treatment  and  injuries," — we  can  see  that  the  inevitableness  of 
fighting  between  men  is  a  great  and  obtrusive  fact. 

But  this  state  of  war  does  not  exclude  civil  ordinances,  rather  it  evokes  them. 
It  is  no  longer  war  of  all  against  all,  but  it  rather  represents  a  phase  in  the  evolution 
of  the  national  life  when  it  has  already  been  long  in  process  of  forming  a  state.  The 
most  important  step  from  savagery  to  culture  is  the  emancipation  of  the  individual 
man  from  complete  or  temporary  segregation  or  isolation.  All  that  co-operates  in 
the  creation  of  societies  as  distinct  from  families  was  of  the  very  greatest  importance 
in  the  earliest  stages  of  the  evolution  of  culture,  and  here  the  struggle  with  Nature, 
in  the  widest  sense,  afforded  the  most  important  incitements.  The  acquisition  of 
food  might  in  the  first  instance  give  rise  to  association  in  joint  hunting  and  still 
more  in  joint  fishing.  Not  the  least  advantage  of  the  latter  is  the  disciplining 
of  the  crews.  In  the  larger  fishing  boats  a  leader  has  to  be  selected  who  must 
be  implicitly  obeyed,  since  all  success  depends  upon  obedience.  Governing 
the  ship  paves  the  way  to  ruling  the  state.  In  the  life  of  a  race  like  that  of- 
the  Solomon  Islanders,  usually  reckoned  complete  savages,  sea-faring  is  undoubtedly 
the  only  element  which  can  concentrate  their  forces.  The  agriculturist  living 
isolated  will  certainly  never  feel  an  impulse  making  so  strongly  for  union  ;  yet  he 
too  has  motives  for  combination,  he  owns  property,  and  in  this  property  inheres 
a  capital  for  his  labour.  Since  this  labour  does  not  need  to  be  again  executed  by 
the  inheritors  of  this  property,  there  follows  of  itself  the  continuity  of  ownership 
and  therewith  the  importance  of  blood  relationship.  Secondly,  we  find  bound 
up  with  agriculture  the  tendency  to  dense  population.  Next,  as  this  popula- 
tion draws  closer  and  marks  its  boundaries,  it,  like  every  multitude  of  men  who 
live  on  the  same  spot  of  earth,  acquires  common  interests,  and  diminutive 
agricultural  states  spring  up.  Among  shepherds  and  nomads  the  formation  of 
states  progresses  more  quickly,  just  in  proportion  as  the  need  for  combination  is 
more  active  and  includes  wider  spaces.  This  indeed  lies  in  the  nature  of  their 
occupation.  Thus  while  the  family  is  in  this  case  of  greater  importance  than  in 
that  first  mentioned,  the  possibility  of  denser  population  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
excluded.  But  here  the  property  requires  stronger  defence,  and  this  is  guaranteed 
by  concentration,  in  the  first  place  of  the  family.  From  an  economic  point  of 
view  it  is  more  reasonable  for  many  to  live  by  one  great  herd  than  for  the  herd 
to  be  much  subdivided.     A  herd  is  easily  scattered,  and  requires  strength  to  keep 


132 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


it  together.  It  is  therefore  no  chance  result  that  the  family  nowhere  attains  to 
such  political  importance  as  among  nomad  races.  Here  the  patriarchal  element 
in  the  formation  of  tribes  and  states  is  most  decidedly  marked  ;  in  a  hunter-state 
the  strongest  is  the  centre  of  power,  in  a  shepherd-state  the  eldest. 

We  are  apt  to  regard  despotism  as  a  lower  form  of  development  in  comparison 
with  the  constitutional  state,  and  attribute  to  it  accordingly  a  high  antiquity.  It 
used  formerly  to  be  thought  that  beginnings  of  political  life  might  be  seen  shaping 


The  Basuto  chief  Secocoeni  with  his  court.      (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Wangemann.) 

themselves  in  the  forms  of  it.  But  this  is  contradicted  at  the  very  outset  by  the 
fact  that  despotism  stands  in  opposition  to  the  tribal  or  patriarchal  origin  from 
which  these  states  have  grown.  The  family  stock  has  of  course  a  leader,  usually 
the  eldest ;  but  apart  from  warfare  his  power  is  almost  nil,  and  to  over-estimate 
it  is  one  of  the  most  frequent  sources  of  political  mistakes  made  by  white  men. 
The  chief's  nearest  relations  in  point  of  fact  do  not  stand  far  enough  below  him 
to  be  mingled  indiscriminately  in  the  mass  of  the  population  over  which  he  rules. 
Thus  we  find  them  already  striving  to  give  a  more  oligarchical  character  to  the 
government.  The  so-called  court  of  African  or  ancient  American. princes  is  doubt- 
less the  council  which  surrounds  them  on  public  occasions.  Arbitrary  rule,  though 
we  find  no  doubt  traces  of  it  everywhere  in  the  lower  grades,  even  when  the  form 
of  government  is  republican,  has  its  basis  not  in  the  strength  of  the  state  or  the 


THE   STATE 


133. 


chief,  but  in  the  moral  weakness  of  the  individual,  who  submits  almost  without 
resistance  to  the  domineering  power.  In  spite  of  individual  tyranny  there  is  a 
vein  of  democracy  running  through  all  the  political  institutions  of  the  "  natural  " 
races.  Nor  could  it  well  be  otherwise  in  a  society  which  was  built  up  upon  the 
gens,  kindred  in  blood,  communistic,  under  the  system  of  "  mother-right."  But 
herein  lay  no  doubt  an  obstacle  to  progress. 
The  power  of  the 


sovereign  is  greatly 
strengthened  by  alli- 
ance with  the  priest- 
hood. A  tendency  to 
theocracy  is  incidental 
to  all  constitutions,  and 
very  often  the  import- 
ance of  the  priest  sur- 
passes that  of  the  ruler 
in  the  person  of  the 
chief.  The  weak  chiefs 
of  Melanesia,  in  order 
not  to  be  quite  power- 
less, apply  the  mystic 
Duk-Duk  system  to 
their  own  purposes  ; 
while  'vs\  Africa  it  is 
among  the  functions 
of  the  chief  to  make 
atonement  for  his 
people  by  magic  arts, 
when  they  have  in- 
curred' the  wrath  of 
higher  Powers,  and  to 
obtain  for  them  by 
prayers  or  charms  ad- 
vantages of  all  kinds. 
This,  however,  does 
not  prevent  the  influ- 
ence of  the  chief  from 
being  overshadowed 
by  that  of  a  priest 
who  happens  to  be  in  possession  of  some  great  fetish.  Conversion  to  Christianity 
has  almost  always  destroyed  the  power  of  the  native  chiefs,  unless  they  have 
contrived  to  take  the  people  with  them.  But  the  religious  sentiment  is  the  one 
thing  that  has  maintained  respect  for  a  chief's  children,  even  when  they  have 
become  slaves. 

The  power  of  the  chief  is  further  heightened  when  the  monopoly  of  trade  is 
combined  with  his  magic  powers.  Since  he  is  the  intermediary  of  trade,  he-  gets 
into  his  own  hands  everything  coveted  by  his  subjects,  and  becomes  the  bestower 
of  good  gifts,  the  fulfiller  of  the  most  cherished  wishes.     This  system  finds  its 


A  Dakota  chief.     (From  a  photograph. ) 


134  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

highest  development  in  Africa,  where  the  most  wealthy  and  liberal  chief  is 
reckoned  the  best.  In  it  lies  the  secure  source  of  great  power  and  often  of 
beneficial  results.  For  at  this  point  we  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  one  of 
the  most  conspicuous  incitements  to  progress,  or,  let  us  say  more  cautiously,  to 
changes  in  the  amount  of  culture  which  a  race  possesses,  is  to  be  sought  in  the 
will  of  prominent  individuals.  We  also  find  chiefs,  however,  whose  power  is  firmly 
based  upon  superior  knowledge  or  skill.  The  Manyema  chief  Moenekuss,  so 
attractively  depicted  by  Livingstone,  was  keen  about  having  his  son  taught 
blacksmithing,  and  the  Namaqua  chief,  Lamert,  was  the  most  efficient  smith  among 
his  tribe.  But  of  course  it  is  in  the  art  of  war  that  accomplishment  is  most  valued 
in  a  chief  In  giving  judgment,  he  needs  no  great  abundance  of  Solomonian 
wisdom,  since  in  all  more  serious  accusations  the  culprit  is  ascertained  by  means 
of  magic,  and  in  this  duty  too  the  popular  council  generally  co-operates.  Mean- 
while whatever  the  chief's  position  may  be,  it  is  never  comparable  with  the  power 
conferred  by  the  wealth  of  culture  existing  in  a  European  people  ;  and  it  were 
to  hz  wished  that  descriptive  travellers  would  employ  such  terms  as  "  king," 
"  palace,"  and  the  like  with  more  discretion.  It  is  only  among  the  war-chiefs 
that  regal  parade  is  customary  ;  the  others  are  often  scarcely  distinguished  from 
tiieir  people. 

Every  race  has  some  kind  of  legal  system  ;  among  most  of  the  "  natural  " 
races,  indeed,  this  fluctuates  between  that  under  which  the  injured  person  takes 
the  law  into  his  own  hands,  and  that  of  money-atonement  for  the  offence.  There 
is  no  question  of  the  majesty  of  the  law  ;  all  that  is  thought  of  is  the  indemnifica- 
tion of  the  person  who  has  suffered  damage.  In  Malayan  law,  for  example,  the 
former  course  may  be  taken  with  a  culprit  caught  in  flagrante  delicto  even  to  the 
point  of  killing  a  thief ;  but  in  any  other  case  redemption,  that  is  a  money  penalty, 
is  enjoined  ;  and  similarly  among  the  negro  races.  Among  lower  as  well  as 
higher  races  violence  has  a  very  free  play,  and  tends  to  limit  its  sphere  as  among 
individuals  according  to  the  resistance  with  which  it  meets.  Blood-feuds  in 
various  degrees  are  to  be  found  among  all  barbarous  races.  In  the  case  of 
Polynesians  and  Melanesians  they  reach  a  fearful  pitch.  Cook  tells  us  that  the 
New  Zealanders  appeared  to  him  to  live  in  constant  mutual  dread  of  attack,  and 
that  there  were  very  few  tribes  who  did  not  conceive  themselves  to  have  suffered 
some  injury  at  the  hands  of  another  tribe  and  meditate  revenge  for  it. 

The  wars  of  "  natural "  races  are  often  far  less  bloody  than  those  waged 
among  ourselves,  frequently  degenerating  into  mere  caricatures  of  warlike  opera- 
tions. Still  the  loss  of  life  caused  by  them  must  not  be  under-estimated,  since 
they  last  for  a  long  time,  and  the  countries  inhabited  by  "  natural "  races  can  in 
any  case  show  only  small  population.  In  the  case  of  Fiji,  Mr.  Williams  estimates 
the  yearly  loss  of  human  lives  in  the  period  of  barbarism  at  1500  to  2000,  "not 
including  the  widows  who  were  strangled  as  soon  as  the  death  of  their  husbands 
was  reported."  These  figures  are  quite  sufficient  to  have  contributed  materially 
to  the  decrease  of  the  population.  Firearms  have  diminished  war,  while  increas- 
ing the  losses.  But  with  this  continual  war,  guerilla  war  as  it  might  be  termed, 
are  associated  those  catastrophes  resulting  from  raids,  in  which  great  destruction 
of  human  life  accompanies  the  outbreaks  of  warlike  passion.  The  final  aim  of  a 
serious  war  among  the  natural  races  is  not  the  defeat,  but  the  extermination  of 
the  adversary  ;  if  the   men   cannot  be  reached,  the   attack  is   made  upon  women 


THE   STATE 


135 


and  children,  especially  where  there  is  a  superstitious  passion  for  the  collection 
of  human  skulls,  as  among  the  head-hunting  Dyaks  of  Borneo.  Of  south-east 
Africa,  Harris  says  :  "  Whole  tribes  have  been  drawn  root  and  branch  from  their 
dwelling-places,  to  disappear  from  the  earth,  or  to  wander  with  varying  fortunes 
over  illimitable  tracts,  driven 
by  the  inexorable  arm  of 
hunger.  Therefore  for  hun- 
dreds of  miles  no  trace  of 
native  industry  meets  our  eyes, 
nor  does  any  human  habita- 
tion ;  never-ending  wars  pre- 
sent the  picture  of  one  unin- 
habited wilderness."  Rapine 
is  associated  with  murder  to 
produce  a  misery  which  civil- 
ized races  can  hardly  realise. 
But  the  culmination  of  this 
devastating  power  is  reached 
when  more  highly  endowed,  or 
at  least  better  organised  hordes 
of  warriors  and  plunderers, 
well  practised  in  slaughter  and 
cruelty,  appear  on  the  scene. 
Amputation  of  hands  and 
feet,  cutting  off  of  noses  and 
ears,  are  usual.  This  ill-treat- 
ment often  has  the  secondary 
object  of  marking  a  prisoner, 
and  to  this  must  be  referred 
the  tattooing  of  prisoners  of 
war.  Lichtenstein  saw  a 
Nama  whom  the  Damaras 
had  taken  prisoner.  They 
had  circumcised  him  and  ex- 
tracted his  middle  upper  front 
teeth :  "  He  showed  us  this, 
and  added  that  if  he  had 
been  caught  by  them  a  second 
time,  these  very  recognisable 
marks  would  inevitably  have  entailed  the  loss  of  his  life." 

Losses  of  life  and  health  may  be  repaired  by  a  few  generations  of  peace,  but 
what  remains  is  the  profound  moral  effect.  This  is  the  shattering  of  all  trust  in 
fellow-men  and  in  the  operation  of  moral  forces,  of  the  love  of  peace  and  the 
sanctity  of  the  pledged  word.  If  the  politics  of  civilized  races  are  not  distin- 
guished by  fidelity  and  confidence,  those  of  the  natural  races  are  the  expression 
of  the  lowest  qualities  of  mistrust,  treachery,  and  recklessness.  The  only  means 
employed  to  attain  an  object  are  trickery  or  intimidation.  In  the  dealings  of 
Europeans  with  natural  races  they  have,  owing  to  this,  had  the  great  advantage 


Articles  belonging  to  Dyak  Iiead-hunters  : — i.  Shield  ornamented  with 
human  hair  ;  2.  Sword  and  knife  ;  3.  Skull  with  engraved  ornament 
and  metal  plate  ;  4.  Basket  to  hold  a  skull,  (i  and  2  probably 
from  Kutei ;  3  and  4  from  W.  Borneo.     Munich  Museum. ) 


136  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

of  very  rarely  having  to  face  a  strong  combination  of  native  powers.  The  single 
example  of  any  great  note  is  the  alliance  of  the  "  six  nations  "  of  North  American 
Indians  belonging  to  the  Iroquois  stock,  which  was  dangerous  to  Europeans  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  An  attempt  at  an  alliance,  which 
might  have  been  very  serious,  was  made  after  the  so-called  Sand  River  treaty  of 
1852  by  Griquas,  Basutos,  Bakwenas,  and  other  Bechuana  tribes,  but  never 
came  to  completion,  and  recent  years  have  again  shown  abundantly  how  little 
the  South  African  tribes  can  do  in  spite  of  their  numbers  and  their  often  con- 
spicuous valour,  for  want  of  the  mutual  confidence  which  might  unite  them  and 
give  a  firm  ground  for  their  efforts. 

Constant  fear  and  insecurity  on  the  part  of  native  races  is  a  necessary  result 
of  frequent  treachery  on  that  of  their  foes.  It  is  significant  that  the  great 
majority  of  barbarous  peoples  are  so  fond  of  weapons  and  never  go  unarmed  ; 
and  nothing  better  indicates  the  higher  state  of  civic  life  in  Uganda  than  that 
walking  sticks  there  take  the  place  of  weapons.  It  is  noted  as  a  striking  feature 
when  no  weapons  are  carried,  as  Finsch  points  out  with  regard  to  the  people  of 
Parsee  Point  in  New  Guinea. 

The  custom  of  treating  strangers  as  enemies,  under  a  superstitious  fear  of 
misfortune  and  sickness,  or  of  knocking  on  the  head  persons  thrown  on  shore  by 
shipwreck  like  "  washed  up  cocoa-nuts,"  was  certainly  a  great  hindrance  to  expan- 
sion. But  we  hear  that  among  the  Melanesians  the  question  was  discussed 
whether  this  was  lawful,  and  that  even  strangers  used  to  link  themselves  by 
marriage  with  a  new  place.  If  they  belonged  to  a  neighbouring  island  or  group 
of  islands  they  were  not  treated  altogether  as  strangers,  since  they  were  not 
regarded  as  uncanny.  Polynesians,  who  were  frequently  driven  upon  the  Banks 
Islands,  were  received  there  in  a  friendly  manner.  If  scarcely  one  of  the  innumer- 
able exploring  expeditions  in  Australia  made  its  way  without  being  threatened 
or  attacked  by  the  aborigines,  we  must  not  overlook  involuntary  violations  of 
the  frontiers  of  native  districts,  for  even  to  this  day  in  Central  Australia  unlicensed 
entry  upon  foreign  territory  reckons  as  a  serious  trespass. 

Thus,  as  in  the  family  and  in  society,  we  meet  also  in  the  political  domain 
with  a  tendency  to  the  sharpest  separation.  Who  does  not  recognise  in  this 
latent  state  of  war  a  great  cause  of  the  backward  condition  of  the  "  natural  "  races  ? 
The  greatness  of  civilized  states,  which  have  worked  themselves  up  to  the  clear 
heights  of  development,  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  act  upon  each  other  by  means 
of  mutual  incitement,  and  so  are  ever  bringing  forth  more  perfect  results.  But 
this  mutual  incitement  is  just  what  is  missing  in  a  state  of  continuous  war.  The 
forces  which  make  for  culture  both  from  within  and  without  are  alike  weakened, 
and  the  consequence  is  stagnation  if  not  retrogression. 

Want  of  defined  frontiers  is  in  the  essence  of  the  formation  of  barbarous 
states.  The  line  is  intentionally  not  drawn,  but  kept  open  as  a  clear  space  of 
varying  breadth.  Even  when  we  reach  the  semi-civilized  states  the  frontiers  are 
liable  to  be  uncertain.  The  entire  state  is  not  closely  dependent  upon  the  area 
which  it  covers,  especially  not  upon  the  parts  near  the  borders.  Only  the  political 
centre,  the  most  essential  point  of  the  whole  structure,  is  fixed.  From  it  the 
power  which  holds  the  state  together  causes  its  strength  to  be  felt  through  the 
outlying  regions  in  varying  measure.  We  have  examples  of  frontier  points  and 
frontier  spaces   at   every  stage.       The  frontier  spaces   are   kept    clear,   and   even 


THE   STATE 


137 


serve  as  common  hunt- 
ing-grounds, but  they 
serve  also  as  habitations 
for  forces  hostile  to  civil 
authority,  forv  desper- 
adoes of  every  shade  of 
villainy. 

Not  infrequently  the 
formation  of  new  states 
starts  from  these  spaces. 
The  cases  in  which  sharp 
frontiers      are      soonest 
formed  is  where  the  two 
fundamentally    different 
modes  of  civilization  and 
life,  nomadism  and  agri- 
culture, come  in  contact. 
Here  of  necessity  fron- 
tiers are  sharply  drawn 
against     races     of     the 
steppes,  and   art   endea- 
vours   to    contribute   its 
aid    by    building    earth- 
works   and    even    walls. 
The  region  of  the  steppes 
is    the    country    of    the 
great  wall  of  China,  and 
of  the  ramparts  thrown 
up   by  Turks   and   Cos- 
sacks. 

Leopold  von  Ranke 
has  stated  as  a  maxim 
of  experience  that  when 
we  study  universal  his- 
tory it  is  not  as  a  rule 
great  monarchies  that 
first  present  themselves, 
but  small  tribal  districts 
or  confederacies  of  the 
nature  of  states.  This 
is  shown  in  the  history 
of  all  great  empires  ; 
even  the  Chinese  can  be 
carried  back  to  small 
beginnings.  No  doubt 
they  have  been  of  short 
duration  with  the  single 
exception  of  the  Roman 


Kingsmill  Islander  in  full  armour.     (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology.) 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Empire.  Even  that  of  China  has  passed  through  its  periods  of  breaking  up. 
From  the  Roman  Empire  the  nations  have  learnt  how  great  territories  must  be 
ruled  in  order  to  keep  them  great  in  extent,  for  since  its  time  history  has  seen 
many  empires,  even  surpassing  the  Roman  in  magnitude,  arise  and  maintain 
themselves  for  centuries.  Apart  from  the  way  in  which  the  teaching  of  history 
__  has  been  taken  to 

heart,  the  increase 
of  population  and 
the  consequent  ac- 
cession of  import- 
ance to  the  ma- 
terial interests  of 
the  people  has  un- 
questionably con- 
tributed to  this. 

But  there  are 
deeper- lying  rea- 
sons for  the  small- 
ness  of  primitive 
states.  Among 

most  "  natural " 
races  the  family 
and  the  society 
form  unions  so 
large,  so  frequently 
coinciding,  so  ex- 
clusive, that  little 
remains  to  spare 
for  the  state.  The 
rapid  break-up  of 
empires  is  counter- 
balanced by  the 
sturdy  tribal  life. 
When  the  empires 
fall  to  pieces  new 
ones  form  them- 
selves from  the  old 
tribes.  The  family 
of   blood -relations, 

u  1  MI  '"    their    common 

barrack  or  village,  represents  at  the  same  time  a  political  unit,  which  can  from 
time  to  time  enter  into  combination  with  others  of  the  kind  ;  to  which  oerhaos 
It  IS  bound  by  more  distant  relationship.  But  it  is  quite  content  to  remain  by 
Itself  so  ong  as  no  external  power  operates  to  shake  its  narrow  contentment 
Negro  Africa  with  all  its  wealth  of  population,  contains  no  single  really  large 
state.  In  that  _  country,  the  greater  an  empire  the  less  its  duration  and  the 
looser  Its  cohesion.  It  requires  greater  organising  and  consolidating  power 
such   as    we    meet  with  among  the    Fulbes  or  Wahuma,   not  merely   to  found' 


Lango  chief  and  magician. 


(From  a  photograph  by  Richard  Buchta. ) 


1.  Difuma  dia  Di- 
kongo.  Iron  sceptre, 
borne  by  the  Bashi- 
lang  chief,  Mana  Kat- 
embe. 

2.  Baluba  wooden 
shield  with  cross-weav- 
ing. 

3.  Basonge  chief's 
staff  of  iron  ;  the  figure 
overlaid  with  sheet- 
copper. 

4.  Basonge  orna- 
mental spear  (Zappu 
Zapp)  inlaid  with 
copper. 

5.  Ornamental 
spear  from  the  Ruiki. 

6.  Basonge  spear. 

7.  Baluba  spear. 

8.  Samba  spear. 

9.  Baluba  double 
drum. 

I  o.  Baluba  woven 
bark  mat. 

II.  Baluba  big 
drum,  used  at  festivals. 

(i-io  from  the 
Wissmann  Collection  ; 
1 1  from  the  Pogge 
Collection. ) 


Insignia,  ornamental  weapons,  and  drums  from  the  Southern  Congo  territory. 


I40  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


but  also,  even  if  with  difficulty,  to  maintain  kingdoms  like  Sokoto  or  Uganda. 
Even  the  Zulus,  high  as  they  stand  in  warlike  organisation,  have  never  been 
able  to  spread  permanently  beyond  their  natural  boundaries,  and  at  the  same 
time  maintain  cohesion  with  their  own  country.  They  have  not  the  capacity 
for  planning  a  peaceable  organisation.  Even  in  the  Mussulman  states  of 
the  Soudan  we  meet  with  this  want  of  firm  internal  cohesion  ;  which  is  equally 
at  the  bottom  of  the  weakness  which  brought  down  the  native  states  of  Central 
and  South  America.  The  more  closely  we  look  at  the  actual  facts  about  Old 
Mexico,  the  less  inclined  shall  we  be  to  apply  terms  like  empire  and  emperor  to 
the  loose  confederation  of  chiefs  on  the  plateau  of  Anahuac.  The  greatness  of 
the  Inca  realm  was  exaggerated  to  the  point  of  fable.  When  we  hear  of  the 
renowned  and  redoubtable  tribe  of  the  Mandan  Indians,  we  are  astonished  to 
learn  that  it  numbered  only  from  900  to  lood  souls.  In  the  Malay  Archipelago 
it  seems  not  to  have  been  until  the  arrival  of  Islam  that  the  formation  of  states 
rose  above  disjointed  village  communities.  Even  in  our  own  day  the  great 
powers  of  South  and  East  Asia  lacked  the  clearness  and  definition  in  the  matter 
of  political  allegiance,  which  are  a  privilege  of  the  higher  civilizations. 

Instead  of  the  extension  of  single  states,  what  takes  place  is  the  foundation 
of  new  ones  by  migration  and  conquest.  It  is  the  multiplication  of  cells  by  fission 
instead  of  the  growth  of  the  organism.  It  is  striking  how  often  the  same  legend 
or  tradition  recurs  in  Africa  or  elsewhere.  A  monarch  sends  out  a  band  of 
warriors  to  conquer  a  country  or  a  town  ;  if  the  enterprise  fails  they  settle  down 
quietly  and  marry  the  daughters  of  the  people  whom  they  came  to  overthrow. 
Such  was  the  origin  of  the  Matabele  ;  such,  it  is  said,  that  of  the  kindred  Masitu. 
Thus  too  are  explained  the  Fulbe  settlements  on  the  Lower  Niger,  and  the  Chinese 
oases  in  the  Shan  States.  Without  crediting  all  these  traditions,  we  may  see  in 
them  a  proof  at  once  of  the  great  part  played  by  war  in  blending  races  in  ancient 
times,  and  of  the  difficulty  of  founding  coherent  states.  Instead  of  these  we  find 
colonies  which  cut  themselves  loose  either  peaceably  or  after  a  war.  The  Alfurs 
of  the  eastern  islands  in  the  Malay  Archipelago  have  definite  rules  for  the 
government  of  their  colonies  ;  and  in  Polynesia  of  old,  colonisation  must  have 
been  as  necessary  in  the  life  of  a  state  as  formerly  in  Greece. 

Among  races  in  a  low  stage  the  cementing  force  of  contests  waged  against 
natural  dangers,  threatening  the  entire  community  and  binding  them  together  for 
common  defence,  is  naturally  but  little  felt.  A  strongly  uniting  power,  by  pro- 
moting the  value  of  common  interests,  has  a  favourable  effect  on  the  general 
culture.  In  the  low-lying  tracts  on  the  coast  of  the  North  Sea,  in  Germany  and 
Holland,  the  common  danger  from  broken  dykes  and  inundation  by  reason  of 
furious  storms  and  high  tides  has  evoked  a  feeling  of  union  which  has  had 
important  results.  There  is  a  deep  meaning  in  the  myths  which  intimately 
connect  the  fight  against  these  forces  of  Nature,  these  hundred-headed  hydras,  or 
sea-monsters  crawling  on  to  the  land,  with  the  extortion  of  the  highest  benefits 
for  races  in  the  foundation  of  states  and  the  acquisition  of  culture.  No  race 
shows  this  more  than  the  Chinese,  whose  land,  abounding  in  streams  and 
marshes,  was  able  to  offer  more  than  sufficient  work  to  its  embanking  and  draining 
heroes — Schem,  Schun,  Jao,  and  their  like.  In  Egypt  a  similar  effect  of  the 
anxiety  for  the  yearly  watering  and  marking  out  of  the  land  is  obvious  from 
history. 


THE  STATE  Hi 


Generally  all  common  needs  which  draw  men  out  of  barren  isolation  must 
have  the  effect  of  promoting  culture.  Above  all,  too,  they  strengthen  the  con- 
stitution which  organises  the  work  done  to  satisfy  those  needs.  States  are  created 
by  common  sovereignty  and  common  requirements.  But  the  sovereignty  must 
come  first.  Outside  the  sphere  of  European  civilization  almost  all  states  are  ruled 
by  intruding  conquerors  ;  that  is  by  foreigners.  The  consciousness  of  national 
dentity  does  not  come  into  existence  until  later,  and  then  makes  its  way  as  a 
state-forming  force  if  the  intellectual  interests  of  the  race  add  their  weight  on  the 
same  side.  In  almost  all  countries  representing  greater  political  units,  we  find 
for  this  reason  various  nationalities.  At  first  one:  is  superior  to  another,  then  they 
are  co-ordinate  ;  it  is  only  in  small  states  that  the  entire  people  has  all  along  been 


formed  of  a  single  stock. 


BOOK   II 

THE  AMERICAN-PACIFIC  GROUP  OF  RACES 

A.  ^  1-9,  Races  of  Oceania — B.  §§  10-15,  Races  of  Australia — C.  §§  16-21,  Malays  and  Mala- 
gasies—  D  i.  §§  22-30,  Americans  and  Hyperboreans — D.  ii.  §§  31-32,  Civilized  races  of 
early  America — E.  §  33,  The  Arctic  races. 


MAP    OF    THE   RACES    OF    OCEANIA  and  AUSTRALASIA 


EXJrom  90     Greernvich. 


Stpai^hihaired  ,  ligllt-brorwTi  Race  (Jfalqvs.purRor  jnix-edwith  Chinese,  Japanese  and  Indicm-s  ) 


^^^^  CrispKaired  ,  (lark-l)roTVil  Race  {Melancsians ,  Papuas,  Neffritos j 

W'-v,^-  "k-^-^^J     "K^«,*™.  "R^--!.   /        separate. or  mixed  witli  the  two  aljove  iLamed        \ 
KVj  hatred  .  l>rawiiBace  {EastFalajs.so-calUdAmLrs,Foljnesians  &AusiraUzt7is  > 

S  ub  d  iv  i  s  i  o  11  s  : 

A  £astMalajs  (with,  curled,  hair)     B  Mieranesiaas    C  Tohmesians     D  Ausiralians 
E  Malofjasies 


'  "'"     Limits  of  the  districts  ivhere  the  adiur^  ontice^,  Sago,  Bread-fruit,  Taro  and  Yam  prevails. 
4.4  +  -f ++  Souffiem  Umit  of  tetterJwuse-bmldinff ,  associated-  oceasionalij  -with,  aqrieidJiire: 
Fo^Tutsiaiv  coloTiies  in.  Melanesia,  and.  MicroTiesia . 

•Distrift-  of  preraSijig  Chinese  i and  formerly  Japane.se- >  ijifhtence.. 
-  District  of  prevailing  Indian,  inflizence. 


Bibliographisch.es  Institul  Leipzig- 


3  4  1  7 

Polynesian  clubs  and  insignia  of  rank, 
i,  ^.  State-paddles  from  the  Hervey  Islands.     3-5.   State-clubs  from  the  Marquesas.     6-11.   Clul\s  from  Tonga. 


A.    THE    RACES   OF   OCEANIA 

§   I.  GENERAL  SURVEY  OF  THE  GROUP 

The  position  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  in  history — The  Indians  of  Columbus — Situation  of  America  in  the  inhabited 
world — Racial  resemblances  of  the  people  of  Oceania  to  Malays  and  Indians — Ethnographic  relation- 
ships—Position of  Japan  and  North-west  America — The  great  groups ;  Oceanians,  Malays  with  Mala- 
gasies, Australians,  Americans — The  Malayo-Polynesian  family  of  languages — To  what  period  are  the 
relations  of  America,  Oceania,  and  Asia  to  be  referred — The  vacant  space  between  Easter  Island  and 
Peru,  and  the  relations  of  America  with  Polynesia. 

Since  the  Pacific  ocean  lies  between  the  eastern  and  western  portions  of  the 
inhabited  earth,  the  inhabitants  of  its  islands  appear  in  a  general  survey  as  the 
instruments  of  an  important  ethnographical  connection.  From  its  western  border 
we  can  follow  Asiatic  traces  far  towards  the  east  in  a  gradual  transition  across 
the  islands.  They  grow  fainter  as  we  go  east,  but  some  remain  even  in  the  most 
eastern  islets  of  Polynesia,  and  some  are  found  again  on  the  opposite  shore, 
especially  in  those  districts  of  North-west  America  which  are  distinguished  by  points 
of  agreement  with  Polynesia.  It  has  been  pointed  out  in  the  first  section  of  our 
introduction  how  closely  the  inhabitants  of  the  Pacific  islands  are  connected  with 
the  Americans  by  the  stone-period  civilization,  which  is  common  and  fundamental 
to  the  eastern  half  of  mankind,  as  well  as  by  that  inclusion  in  the  Mongolian  race, 
which  applies  to  by  far  the  greater  part  of  them.  This  connection  is  one  of  the 
most  important  facts  in  the  ethnographical  distribution  of  the  human  race  as  it  now 
exists.  It  has  been  said  that  the  key  to  the  greatest  problems  of  ethnography  is 
to  be  found  in  America.  If  we  can  succeed  in  bringing  the  inhabitants  of  this  the 
largest  and  most  isolated  island  of  the  world  into  connection  with  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, then  in  any  case  the  unity  of  the  human  race  is  established.  But  the  con- 
nection can  only  be  sought  by  way  of  the  Pacific,  for  ancient  America  looks  westward. 
From  this  side  America  must  have  been  discovered  long  before  the  Northmen  found 
their  way  to  its  shores  from  the  east.  Among  the  peculiarities  of  the  inhabitants 
■of  Guanahani  which  most  astonished  Columbus,  was  their  lack  of  iron,  as  he  noted 
in  his  log-book  as  long  ago  as  13th  October  1492.  No  subsequent  discovery  has 
succeeded  in  putting  this  significant  fact  of  old  American,  and  at  the  same  time 
of  Oceanian,  ethnography  in  another  light.  With  the  exception  of  a  strip  in  the 
north-west,  which  became  acquainted  with  iron  from  Asia,  America  was,  when 
discovered,  still  in  the  stone  age.  Even  its  more  civilized  races,  while  producing 
highly  artistic  work  in  gold,  silver,  copper,  and  bronze,  use  weapons  and  imple- 
ments of  stone.  When  Africa  was  discovered  by  the  Europeans  it  was  manufac- 
turing iron  right  away  to  the  Hottentot  country.  The  races  of  the  Malay 
Archipelago  wrought  artistically  in  iron.  In  Northern  Asia  only  one  strip  on 
the  coast  where  their  traffic  was  small  was  without  iron.  Thus  the  domain  of 
the  ironless  races  lies  on  the  eastern  border  of  the  inhabited  earth  ;  it  embraces 

L 


146 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Australia,  the  Pacific  Islands,  the  Arctic  region,  and  America.  Absence  of  iron 
implies  limitation  to  the  use  of  stone,  bone,  or  wood,  for  imperfect  weapons  and 
utensils  implies,  too,  exclusion  from  the  possibility  of  such  industrial  progress  as 
is  based  upon  iron  and  steel.  Within  the  line  which  includes  the  ironless  races 
there  is  to  be  observed  also  the  want  of  the  most  valuable  domestic  animals  ;  oxen, 
buffaloes,  sheep,  goats,  elephants,  camels,  are  here  unknown,  and  consequently 
there  is  no  cattle-breeding. 

The  racial  affinities  of  the  Americans  also  point,  not  across  the  Atlantic,  but 


Araucanian  man  and  woman.     (From  a  photograph  ) 


across  the  Pacific.  When  Columbus  said  of  the  natives  of  the  West  Indies, 
"  they  are  neither  white  nor  black,''  he  means  that  he  can  compare  them  neither 
with  Europeans  nor  negroes.  In  later  times  the  difference  of  the  Americans 
from  negroes,  and  their  resemblance  to  the  races  on  the  western  border  of  the 
Pacific,  has  often  been  more  clearly  indicated.  Whatever  isolated  characteristics 
we  may  yet  be  able  to  adduce  among  all  races  at  a  similar  level  of  civilisation,, 
the  Americans  stand  nearest  to  those  who  live  to  the  westward  of  them.  If  we 
unroll  a  map  on  Mercator's  projection,  and  cast  our  eyes  upon  the  earth  and  its 
races,  the  Americans  find  their  place  on  the  east  wing  contrasted  with,  and 
furthest  separated  from  those  who  have  their  dwelling  on  the  eastern  borders  of 
the  dividing  gulf  of  the  Atlantic  ocean. 

As  the  most  easterly  part  of  the  Pacific-American  region  of  the  stone-using 
countries,  America  is  at  the  same  time  the  true  Orient  of  the  inhabited  earth. 
The  whole  of  America  shares  with  Polynesia,  and   did  once  share  with   Northern 


GENERAL   SURVEY  OF  THE    GROUP  147 

Asia,  all  the  distinctive  marks  of  stone-age  countries,  which  have  sometimes  a  more 
Polynesian,  sometimes  a  more  Northern  Asiatic  character.  It  is,  however,  in  many 
respects  poorer  than  either,  since  it  possesses  neither  the  pig  nor  the  taro  of  the 
Polynesians,  nor  the  reindeer  herds  of  Northern  Asia.  This  poverty,  due  to 
remoteness,  confirms  us  in  the  notion  that  in  America  we  have  the  final  link  in 
a  chain  of  distribution  of  which  the  beginning  is  to  be  sought  on  the  eastern 
shore  of  the  Atlantic.  With  the  ordinary  idea  that  American  evolution  exhibits 
an  isolated,  almost  insulated,  independence,  our  view  is  only  apparently  in  contra- 
diction. Within  the  lines  of  its  affinity  with  the  eastern  lands  of  the  inhabited 
world,  America  is,  in  any  case,  a  region  of  extreme  independence,  firmly  based  on 
the  geographical  fact  of  its  situation  between  the  two  largest  oceans.  But  this 
finds  expression  far  less  in  individual  ethnographical  peculiarities  than  in  points  of 
conformity  which  mark  it  off  as  a  whole.  The  .specialty  is  not  of  kind  but  of 
degree.  If  we  look  at  bodily  characteristics,  the  conformity  of  all  Red  Indians 
among  themselves  is  very  great,  so  long  as  we  consider  skin,  hair,  and  physiognomy  ; 
but  if  we  include  the  skull,  it  breaks  down.  Here  we  are  in  presence  of  the  same 
contradiction  that  meets  us  as  an  internal  point  of  difference  among  the  islanders 
of  the  Pacific.  With  A.  von  Humboldt,  with  the  Prince  of  Wied,  and  with  Morton, 
we  can  only  hold  fast  to  the  external  unity  of  the  race.  The  results  of  investigating 
the -skulls  will,  to  all  appearance,  only  prove  that  a  more  ancient  variety  of  racial 
elements  is  concealed  under  the  insular  uniformity  of  to-day.  But  there  can  be 
no  doubt  as  to  the  affinity  of  the  American  tribes  with  the  great  Mongoloid  race, 
and,  moreover,  with  that  branch  of  it  to  which  the  dwellers  in  Eastern  Oceania 
belong.  Of  both  the  similarity  is  shown  in  a  comparison  of  colour,  hair,  and 
skeleton. 

What  in  a  racial  point  of  view-severs  the  people  of  Oceania  most  profoundly 
from  their  neighbours  to  the  eastward,  is  the  unmistakable  extension  of  the 
Indo-African  group  of  races  into  the  midst  of  their  island-region.  Individual 
small  groups  of  these  negroids  are  undoubtedly  scattered  over  all  the  archipelagos, 
and  have  here  and  there  imparted  to  the  original  Malay  colouring  a  deeper 
Polynesian  tint ;  but  neither  are  traces  of  them  lacking  in  America.  The 
species  of  mankind  that  occur  in  the  South  Sea  Islands  were  long  ago  brought 
by  Forster  into  two  main  divisions.  One  was  lighter  coloured,  better  shaped,  of 
strong  muscular  build,  handsome  stature,  and  gentle,  good-natured  character  ;  the 
other  blacker,  with  hair  becoming  crisp  and  wavy,  leaner,  smaller,  almost  more  lively 
than  the  other,  but  at  the  same  time  more  suspicious.  These  are  the  "  Poly- 
nesians "  and  "  Melanesians  "  of  more  recent  ethnographers.  They  cannot  always 
be  distinguished.  Where  it  was  supposed  that  only  members  of  the  latter  group 
existed,  scattered  examples,  nay,  sometimes  whole  tribes  of  the  lighter-skinned 
straight-haired  race  have  turned  up  ;  while  even  among  the  Samoans,  Virchow  is 
decided  in  assuming  a  certain  negroid  strain.  Finsch  describes  the  natives  of 
Port  Moresby  as  follows  :  "  We  find  here  every  variety,  from  perfectly  smooth 
hair  to  the  twisted  wig  of  the  Papua  ;  curiy  heads,  some  of  a  red  blonde,  are 
frequent ;  Japanese  or  Jewish  physiognomies,  even  men  with  eagle  noses,  remind- 
ing one  of  Redskins,  are  not  rare.  So  too  with  the  colour  of  the  skin."  The 
least  we  can  do  is  to  leave  the  possibility  of  mixed  descent  an  open  question,  as 
Wilkes  did  with  the  Paumotu  Islanders.  The  question  of  origin  becomes  more 
complicated  ;  but  it  is  surely  better,  in  place  of  assuming  a  pure  Polynesian  origin 


148 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


from  the  north-east,  to  draw  also  a  line  of  affinity  towards  the  north-west,  than 
with  Crozet  and  others  to  drag  up  again  the  worn-out  hypothesis  of  a  dark-skinned 
"  primeval  population."  If  two  races  dwell  in  the  Pacific,  two  races  may  have 
migrated  thither,  especially  if  they  were  used  to  sea  and  ships. 

The  race-relationship  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  Malay  Archipelago  is  apt  to 
be  asserted  with  all  the  more  emphasis  because  the  language-relationship  so  clearly 
points  to  it.  But  we  must  keep  these  two  relationships  quite  distinct.  Those 
races  of  the   Malay  Archipelago  which   show  Asiatic  affinities   in   lighter  skin   or 


Bakairi  girl  from  the  Kulishu  river.     (After  Dr.  R.  von  den  Steinen. ) 

Chinese  eyes,  are  perhaps  more  strongly  represented  in  some  islands  of  Micronesia. 
The  real  Polynesians  are  more  closely  linked  to  the  races  with  negroid  elements 
in  them  dwelling  eastward  from  Java  and  the  Philippines.  Physically  the  Poly- 
nesians are  less  like  the  inhabitants  of  the  Malay  Archipelago  than  are  the  Hovas 
of  Madagascar.  Since  the  time  of  the  elder  Lesson  it  has  been  usual  to  trace  the 
descent  of  the  Polynesians  from  Dyaks,  Battaks,  Maoris,  Alfurs,  owing  to  their 
obviously  small  resemblance  to  the  Malays  proper.  Topinard  even  refers  the  mass 
of  the  Polynesians  to  North  America ;  holding  that  conquerors,  in  no  great 
number,  may  have  come  from  Buru  in  Celebes  ;  but  we  do  not  yet  possess  the 
fuller  anthropological  evidence,  based  on  a  multiplication  of  measurements,  required 
to  prove  this  view.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  it  replaces  the  artificial  theory,  insuf- 
ficiently grounded  on  either  philology  or  ethnology,  of  a  single  immigration  and 
simple  branching-off,  by  a  permeation  and  cleavage  of  races.  In  the  next  section,  on 
the  migration  of  the  Polynesians,  we  shall  adduce  a  series  of  facts  in  support  of  it. 


GENERAL  SURVEY  OF  THE   GROUP 


149 


Given  the  existence  of  a  group  of  sea-faring  races,  who,  gradually  by  dint  of 
uninterrupted  voluntary  and  involuntary  migration,  occupied  various  coast  and 
island-districts  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  there  follows  necessarily,  if  we  allow  for  long 
periods,  a  wide  distribution  over  this  large  district ;  and  therewith  arises  that 
ethnographic  agreement  which  connects  the  lands  on  the  eastern  and  western 
borders  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  Zuniga's  meteorological  basis  of  belief  for  asserting 
the  South  American  origin  of  the  Tagals,  namely,  the  impossibility  of  bearing  up 
against  the  south-east  trades,  can  as  little  be  maintained  as  the  likeness  asserted 
by  him  to  exist  between  Tagalese  and  Chilian.  Since  his  day  the  knowledge  of  the 
ethnography  of  the  American  races  has  pro- 
gressed. We  see  how  both  east  and  west 
of  the  Pacific  religious  beliefs  and  usages 
are  based  upon  the  same  animistic  belief 
and  upon  an  ancestor-worship  which  not 
only  stands  on  a  similar  footing,  but 
often  assumes  precisely  concordant  forms  ; 
just  as  the  treatment  of  corpses  and  the 
procedure  of  the  priests  embrace  a  whole 
host  of  similar  practices.  The  principles 
of  cosmogony,  the  high  importance  at- 
tached to  the  tribal  symbols,  even  less 
prominent  legends  like  that  of  the  foun- 
tain of  life — Boas  has  briefly  indicated 
the  remarkable  conformity  of  north-west 
American  legends  with  those  of  the  Ainus 
and  of  Micronesia — and  inconspicuous  ex- 
pedients of  daily  life,  such  as  the  employ- 
ment of  narcotics  in  the  capture  of  fish,  or 
the  shape  of  the  fish-hooks,  the  dressing 
of  fish  by  steaming,  the  preparation  of  fer- 
mented liquors,  are  alike  in  both  regions. 
Valuable  evidence  is  given  by  conform- 
ities in  tattooing,  in  painting  the  body,  in     > 

details  of  decorative  mutilation  ;  more  especially  in  the  style  of  the  necklaces 
made  of  little  polished  disks  of  red,  white,  and  black  shells.  Even  the  metallic 
wealth  of  America  could  not  oust  the  use  of  stone,  bones,  and  shells.  In  connec- 
tion with  this  important  feature,  we  have  already  pointed  out  the  common 
prevalence  of  a  definite  type  of  economic  life.  We  may  refer  once  more  to 
the  weapons ;  the  encroachment  of  the  Asiatic  bow  upon  North  and  Central 
America  or  the  similarity  of  the  same  weapon  in  South  America  and  Melanesia. 
On  Nissan,  in  the  Solomon  Islands,  a  stone  axe  has  lately  been  discovered 
with  a  chamfer  running  almost  round,  just  like  the  American,  and  like  them 
fastened  into  a  piece  of  wood  split  into  a  fork.  Probably  many  more  finds  of 
this  sort  will  occur.  Wicker  armour  and  cuirasses,  with  protection  for  the  neck, 
are  most  widely  spread  on  the  Asiatic  and  American  borders  of  the  Pacific  ;  but 
extend  far  into  the  island  world  of  the  tropics.  Throwing-sticks  were  at  one  time 
thought  to  exist  only  among  Australians  and  Eskimos  ;  now  specimens  are  known 
also   from    Mexico  and    Brazil.      In    North-west   America,   as   in    many   parts   of 


Maori  girl. 


(From  photograph  in  the  possession  of 
Dr.  Max  Buchner. ) 


I50 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Oceania,  especially  in  the  Bismarck  Archipelago,  dancing-masks  are  used,  with 
curious  ornamentation  based  upon  the  conventionalised  figures  of  animals.  In 
one  region  we  find  otter  and  frog,  beaver  and  hawk,  arranged  together ;  in  the 
other  snake,  lizard,  fish,  beetle,  bird.  The  masks  of  New  Ireland  remind  us  to 
a  striking  degree  of  those  used  by  the  Haidas.  Less  importance  is  to  be  assigned 
to  the  fact  that  in  both  these  cases  the  eyes,  and  the  ornaments  in  the  shape 
of  eyes,  are  made  with  inlaid  shell,  than  to  the  striking  agreement  in  the 
connection  formed  by  the  tongue  dependent  between  the  upper  part,  representing 


Men  of  Ponap^  in  the  Carolines.     {From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album.) 

a  broad  animal's  head,  and  a  second  animal.  This  arrangement  of  animals'  heads 
in  a  row  along  the  middle  line  reminds  us  of  North  America,  no  less  than  the 
eye-ornament,  which  is  an  essential  element  of  the  Pacific  and  American  styles. 
We  must  indeed  note  that  it  is  not  always  between  races  lying  nearest  to  each 
other  that  the  closest  relations  prevail.  On  the  other  we  meet  agreements  not 
merely  at  single  points,  but  running  all  through  the  groups.  Thus  not  merely 
does  the  Dyak  loom  resemble  that  used  by  the  Indians  of  North-west  America  ; 
the  practice  of  head-hunting,  the  cult  of  skulls,  the  use  of  human  hair  for  orna- 
ment, are  common  to  both.  The  ornament  of  Malay  fabrics  is  remarkably  like 
that  of  the  early  Americans.  Among  the  Calchaquis  of  Northern  Argentina  we 
find  pottery  painted  with  line  drawings  of  birds,  reptiles,  and  human  faces,  which 
remind  us  of  Peruvian,  and  no  less,  in  selection  and  conventional  treatment  of  the 
themes,  of  Malay  work.  In  customs  too  several  features  recur  in  a  marked  way. 
Particular  forms  of  greeting,  the  declaration  of  an  agreement  by  the  transfer  of 


GENERAL  SURVEY  OF  THE   GROUP 


151 


a  piece  of  stick,  the  method  of  communicating  by  means  of  wooden  drums,  and  so 
on.  But  over  all  arises,  like  a  great  edifice  common  to  all,  the  social  order  based 
on  "  mother-right "  and  exogamy.  We  find  it  most  distinctly  in  Australia  and 
Melanesia  ;  then  again  in  America,  while  between  the  two,  in  Polynesia,  lies  a 
region  in  which  it  has  broken  down  and  become  obsolete.  In  South  and  North 
America  we  meet  with  the  same  system,  often  repeated  even  in  small  details. 

The  impoverishment  which  we  find  becoming  more  and  more  conspicuous  in 
the  animal  and  vegetable  world  of  Oceania,  as  we  proceed  eastwards,  in  no  way 
holds  good  of  mankind.  In  the  Pacific  the  most  recent  development  holds 
the  eastern  parts  ;  the  west  and  south  are  backward.  The  Melanesians  occupy 
as  it  were  a  depression  in  the  level  of 
culture  between  Malays  on  the  one 
hand  and  Polynesians  on  the  other. 
But  on  the  South  American  shores  we 
find  in  Peru  a  region  of  yet  higher  cul- 
ture. If  to  the  works  of  art  we  add 
what  is  from  an  ethnographic  point  of 
view  a  more  important  intellectual  pos- 
session, namely  religious  conceptions, 
together  with  social  and  political  insti- 
tutions, we  find  the  east  standing  higher 
than  the  west ;  and  that  is  true  not 
only  for  Melanesia,  but  for  Micronesia 
■as  well.  No  mistake  on  this  point  need 
arise  from  the  fact  that  more  objects 
in  our  museums  come  from  islands 
which  have  been  ransacked  later,  or 
which  have  fallen  less  into  decay  by 
reason  of  white  influence.  In  the 
general  position  held  by  the  two  great 

Pacific  groups  of  races  towards  each  other  we  can  recognise  a  great  difference  of 
level.  The  Melanesians  are  on  the  whole  inferior  to  the  Polynesians ;  they 
represent  an  earlier  development,  retaining  much  which  among  the  latter  has 
already  become  obsolete.  We  cannot,  however,  at  the  present  day  decide  whether 
the  proximity  of  America  or  independent  evolution  has  been  the  cause  of  this_ 
superiority  in  the  eastern  parts  of  Oceania.  Still  not  only  the  points  of  agree- 
ment, but  also  the  far  shorter  distance,  are  in  favour  of  America. 

If  we  group  the  races  of  this  wide  region  into  the  Americans  dwelling  on  the 
eastern  shores  of  the  Pacific,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  islands  on  its  western 
border,  on  the  south,  and  far  out  in  the  ocean,  we  may  denote  the  second  group 
by  the  name  of  Oceanians,  seeing  that  the  Pacific  is  the  only  ocean  that  possesses 
so  widespread  a  population  having  a  character  peculiar  to  itself  The  possession 
(or  lack)  of  a  host  of  important  articles  links  the  oceanic  races  together  in  contra- 
distinction to  the  Malays  on  the  west  and  the  Australians  on  the  south.  From 
the  Australians  they  are  sharply  divided  ;  but  on  the  other  hand  they  are 
connected  with  the  Malays  by  transitions  which  point  partly  to  a  closer  connection 
of  origin,  partly  to  influences  of  long  standing.  But  as  they  have  many  points, 
notably   the   use   of  stone,  in   common   with   the  Americans,  while   the  Malays 


Boy  of  New  Ireland       (From  a  photograph  ) 


is: 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


are    within    the    domain    of    iron,    they   hold    a    very    different    position    towards 
these  latter  from  that  held  for  example  by  the  most  westerly  outliers  of  that 

race,  the  Malagasies. 
While  the  Oceanic  and 
Australian  races  have, 
together  with  the 
Americans,  remained 
in  the  stone  period  of 
civilization,  the  Aus- 
tralians indeed  degen- 
erating in  their  isola- 
tion, Malays  and  Mala- 
gasies have  gained  by 
means  of  influences 
from  Asia  and  Africa. 
The  importance  of  the 
Malays  lies  to  a  great 
extent  in  the  fact  that 
they  have  been  instru- 
mental in  the  diffusion 
of  these  influences 
eastward.  But  the 
connection  of  the 
Oceanians  with  them 
reaches  back  to  an 
early  period.  When 
the  regions  of  Oceania 
were  first  unveiled  to 
Europeans  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  iron 
was  found  to  have 
advanced  as  far  as 
New  Guinea,  and  the 
influence  of  India,  as 
shown  by  details  of 
language  and  artistic 
style,  had  extended  to 
the  same  point.  This 
influence  was  spread 
by  those  active  traders 
and  expert  seamen,  the 
Malays,  and  with  the 
support  of  Eastern 
Asia,  which  had  not 
then  elevated  exclu- 
siveness  to  a  principle  of  state,  but  had  kept  up  an  active  traffic  with  the  south, 
it  would  have  spread  further.  According  to  the  statement  of  George  Spilberg, 
the  crews  of  the  fleet,  which  was  equipped  in  1 6 1 6  against  the  Dutch  in  Manilla, 


Man  of  Xe«-  South  Wales.      (From  a  photograph.) 


GENERAL   SURVEY  OF   THE    GROUP 


153 


were  composed  of  Indians,  Chinese,  and  Japanese.  An  Indian  bronze  bell,  with 
an  inscription  in  Tamil,  has  been  found  in  the  interior  of  New  Zealand  ;  it  was 
the  ship's  bell  of  some  Mussulman  Tamil,  and  dates  from  the  fourteenth  century 
at  latest.  The  place  of  these  weak  and  irregularly-acting  influences  has  now  been 
taken  by  the  weighty  advance  of  the  Europeans,  under  whose  hands  in  the  course 
of  300  years  almost  all  that  was  peculiar  has  died  out,  together  with  a  great  part 
of  the  population. 

The  Malayo-Polynesians  are  at  this  day  the  most  pronouncedly  insular  people 
on  the  earth ;  their  only  remaining 
hold  on  the  mainland  is  by  the  penin- 
sula of  Malacca.  iBut  we  may  main- 
tain a  continental  origin  for  individual 
tribes  now  living  on  islands,  like  the 
Malays  and  Acheenese  of  Sumatra, 
without  any  inducement  from  the  desire 
of  finding  an  origin,  or  so-called  cradle 
of  mankind,  for  all  the  races  of  the 
earth,  on  the  continent  of  Asia.  H. 
Kern  assumes,  on  philological  grounds 
that  the  home  of  the  Malayo-Poly- 
nesians, including  the  Malagasies,  was 
situated  in  a  tropical  country,  where 
sugar-cane,  coco-nut,  rice,  banana,  rattan, 
and  iaro  grew,  and  where  they  were 
acquainted  with  dogs,  pigs,  poultry, 
various  kind  of  monkeys,  turtles,  pro- 
bably also  buffaloes  and  crocodiles,  and 
possibly  even  elephants  and  horses,  and 
that  it  was  at  no  great  distance  from 
the  sea.  He  is  most  inclined  to  look 
for  the  district  of  their  origin  in  the 
countries  which  are  now  called  Cam- 
bodia, Annam,  and  Siam.  The  Ma- 
layan starting-point  for  the  Polynesian 
migration  has  been  connected  with  the 
word  bolotu,  used  by  Polynesians  for 
the  next  world,  the  abode  of  the  gods  ; 

in  which  a  reminiscence  of  Buru  has  been  imagined.  In  spite  of  various  indi- 
cations in  that  direction,  we  can  hardly  reconcile  ourselves  to  the  notion  that  a 
single  insignificant  island  of  the  great  Archipelago  can  have  given  rise  to  the 
widely-scattered  peoples  of  the  Central  Pacific — all  the  less  when  we  find  Malayo- 
Polynesian  affinities  extending  to  the  Melanesian  Islands  and  Madagascar.  The 
continental  origin  of  the  Malayo-Polynesians  is  of  special  import  for  the  right 
understanding  of  them,  since  it  reveals  to  us  the  possibility  of  their  wider  exten- 
sion in  former  times  in  the  western  coast  districts  of  the  Pacific.  Their  presence 
in  Formosa,  the  traces  of  them  in  Japan,  lead  in  that  direction  to  a  point 
where  the  chain  of  relations  with  North-west  America  becomes  more  clearly 
visible.      The   question   whether  these    races  had  once  a  wide    extension    on   the 


Dyak  woman  of  Borneo.      (From  a  photograph  in  the 
Damann  Album. ) 


154  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


continent  may  here  be  passed  over.  Between  Japan,  where  north-west  American 
influences  are  recognisable,  and  Formosa,  to  which  the  Malayo-Polynesians 
extend  at  the  present  day,  so  narrow  a  gap  is  left  that  transference  is  almost 
certain.  But  a  more  important  fact  is  that  with  so  much  larger  an  extension 
either  on  the  coast  or  on  islands  towards  the  north,  the  possibility  of  direct 
connection  by  means  of  migration,  voluntary  and  involuntary,  is  increased. 
The  coast  northward  from  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  with  its  numerous 
islands,  more  especially  the  part  between  Puget  Sound  and  Cape  Spencer,  the 
Beehive  as  Dall  calls  it,  where  continuous  swarms  of  men  are  reared  and  sent  forth, 
is  some  four  thousand  miles  in  a  straight  h'ne  from  the  Japanese  archipelago.  On 
this  side  also,  and  from  hence  northward  to  the  Behring  Straits,  there  stretches  a 
region  where  the  art  of  navigation  is  highly  developed.  The  points  of  agreement 
with  America  of  which  we  get  glimpses  even  under  the  peculiar  and  high 
civilization  of  Japan  grow  thicker  as  we  go  north,  until  on  the  Behring  Sea  we 
arrive  at  identity  between  the  races  dwelling  on  the  Asiatic  and  American  shores. 
That  very  more  recent  extension  of  Asiatic  characteristics  over  North  America, 
from  which  it  results  that  South  American  races  show  in  details  points  of 
conformity  with  those  of  the  south-west  Pacific,  while  the  North  American  are 
more  clearly  traceable  to  the  north-west  Pacific,  testifies  to  the  advantages  of  the 
northern  road. 

The  Pacific  islands  are  in  the  tropical  zone  separated  from  the  American  shore 
by  a  space  of  forty  to  sixty  degrees  of  longitude  in  which  there  are  neither  islands 
nor  inhabitants.  The  single  group  of  any  size,  namely  the  Galapagos,  which  can 
be  reached  in  three  days  from  the  South  American  coast,  seems  never  to  have  been 
seen  by  any  man  before  the  first  visit  of  Europeans.  If  we  consider  that  this 
empty  space  is  only  one-third  as  broad  as  that  between  Easter  Island  and  the 
most  easterly  islands  of  the  Malay  Archipelago,  and  that  the  Easter  Islanders, 
in  order  to  reach  their  island  from  the  Samoa  group — generally  considered  the 
common  centre  of  dispersion  for  the  Polynesians, — had  to  traverse  a  much  longer 
road  than  that  space  would  involve,  the  gap  will  appear  to  us  of  much  less 
importance.  In  proportion  to  the  inhabited  part  of  the  Pacific  with  its  many 
islands,  this  rift  is  not  wide  enough  to  prevent  us  from  regarding  the  Pacific  like 
the  Indian  Ocean,  and  in  contrast  to  the  Atlantic,  as  an  inhabited  sea.  We  have 
no  historical  record  of  voyages,  voluntary  or  involuntary,  in  the  region  east  from 
Eastsr  Island.  Peruvian  annals  mention  coasting  voyages  and  more  distant  naval 
expeditions  for  conquest  or  discovery.  Pizarro  met  with  trading  ships,  and  the 
Chinchas  as  well  as  the  Chimus  had  traditions  of  a  distant  home  across  the  sea. 
But  there  is  no  historical  indication  of  any  immediate  traffic  between  Polynesia 
and  South  America.  It  is  far  more  probable  that  the  agreements  and  resemblances 
are  all  contained  within  the  four  corners  of  a  common  inclusion  of  both  parts  in  the 
great  Pacific  group  of  races.  The  Chinese  imagination  again  of  a  great  land  in  the 
east  can  only  be  interpreted  as  meaning  North-west  America,  and  the  gold-bearing 
islands  which  the  Japanese  placed  in  the  east — Tasman  was  sent  to  discover  them 
and  found  the  Bonin  Islands, — belonged  to  legend.  As  to  the  derivation  of  the 
old  American  civilizations  from  Asia,  we  shall  have  to  speak  of  it  in  the  American 
division  of  our  work. 


Printed  Try-  fhi?  Bibliograjhisches  Institut.  Leipzig 

POLYNESIAN   WEAPONS   AND   COSTUME. 


POLYIfESIAN  WEAPONS  AND  COSTUME. 
t.  Lance :  Viti. 

2.  Feather-scepttB :  Sandwich  Islands. 

3.  "  Partisan,  "with  shark's  teeth :  Kings- 
mill  Island. 


S.  Sacred  staff :  Cook  Islands. 
9.  Feather  head-ring :  Sandwich  Is- 
lands. 

10.  Ornamental  gorget :  Tahiti. 

11.  Idol:  Tahiti. 

12.  Dance    Club  :     Vanikoro,    Santa 
Cruz. 

All  one-tenth  of  natural  size.     Nos>  i,  x,  4,  9  12,  13,  i8,  from  the  Ethnographical  Museum,  Berlin.    The  rest  from  British 

Museum  and  Christy  collection. 


4.  Fan  :  Sandwich  Islands. 

5.  Dancing-cap:  Cook  or  Society  Islands, 
6,  7.  Feather  helmets  :  Hawaii. 


13.  Tapa-c\otii :  Tonga. 

14.  Feather  cloak  :  Hawaii. 
■5)  161  17.  Feather  masks  :  Hawaii. 

18.  Waier-bottle:  Fiji. 

19.  Spear  with  shark's  teeth :  Kings- 
mill  Islands. 

Club. 


THE  RACES   OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND   THEIR  MIGRATIONS  155 


§  2.  THE  RACES  OF  THE   PACIFIC  AND  THEIR  MIGRATIONS 

The  island  groups,  their  climate  and  their  cultivated  plants — Number  of  the  population,  its  decrease  and 
shifting — Traces  of  denser  population  and  of  civilization — Ruins — Migrations — Involuntary  migrations  in 
the  Pacific — Navigation  and  shipbuilding — Orientation — Trading  journeys — Famine,  war,  and  other 
grounds  of  emigration  and  immigration — Legends  of  migrations — Migrations  in  mythology — Community 
of  speech  and  agreement  of  customs  in  Polynesia — Legend  of  Hawaiki — Polynesians  in  Melanesia  and 
Micronesia — Uninhabited  islands — Date  of  the  migrations — Ethnographical  groups  in  the  Pacific — Genea- 
logy of  the  Australians. 

Throughout  the  western  and  central  part  of  the  Pacific  are  many  thousands  of 
islands  scattered  about  in  numerous  groups.  On  the  west  they  are  connected  by 
larger  islands  with  Australia  and  the  Malayan  Archipelago.  There  is  first  of  all 
New  Guinea  with  the  inner  chain  of  the  Melanesian  islands  ending  on  the  east 
with  the  Fiji  group  ;  the  New  Zealand  group  lies  isolated  to  the  south-east.  East- 
ward beyond  Fiji  and  northward  beyond  New  Ireland  lie  countless  smaller  islands 
forming  Polynesia.  They  stretch  away  from  the  Carolines  to  Easter  Island, 
which  is  separated  by  a  space  of  nearly  2500  miles  from  the  South  American 
coast,  and  they  stretch  from  the  South  Island  of  New  Zealand  to  Hawaii.  Within 
the  angle  formed  by  a  line  running  through  the  Mariannes  towards  Japan  and 
another  running  through  the  Pelew  Islands  towards  the  Philippines,  there  lies  a 
second  group  of  still  smaller  islands  called  Micronesia.  The  separation  between 
the  three  groups  does  not  penetrate  far  ;  smaller  groups  within  them  may  much 
more  naturally  be  excluded.  Individual  countries,  larger  and  smaller,  have  plenty 
of  common  peculiarities  both  in  natural  character  and  in  the  mode  of  their  origin. 
Long  ago  a  natural  division  into  high  and  low  islands  was  recognised,  the  latter 
including  the  coralline,  the  former  the  volcanic  islands.  This  simple  classifica- 
tion does  not  indeed  wholly  correspond  with  the  domain  of  phenomena,  surface 
phenomena,  volcanic  phenomena,  and  violent  earthquakes  occurring  over  the  whole 
length  and  breadth  of  the  region  ;  while  the  coral  formation  has  been  developed 
to  an  extent  such  as  is  nowhere  else  found  in  that  tropical  belt  of  the  Pacific  which 
is  richest  in  islands.  Only  certain  islands,  the  chief  of  them  being  New  Guinea 
and  the  two  larger  islands  of  New  Zealand,  afford  space  'for  development  on  a 
large  scale,  and  sufficient  to  permit,  more  especially  in  Melanesia  with  its  larger 
islands,  the  growth  of  differences  between  up-country  and  coast  tribes.  New 
Guinea  does  not  indeed  hold  a  position  in  Melanesia  proportionate  to  its  size,  being 
more  sparsely  inhabited  than  most  of  the  islands  lying  in  front  of  it,  an  evidence 
for  the  indolence  and  unproductiveness  of  true  Papuan  labour  and  its  development. 
On  the  other  side  the  distance  of  New  Zealand  from  Polynesia  prevented  it  from 
exercising  those  more  penetrating  effects  which  might  have  been  expected  to 
emanate  from  the  largest  among  the  islands.  Thus  we  have  before  us,  almost 
universally,  only  the  population  of  small  and  numerous  areas,  very  unevenly 
endowed,  and  widely  separated  from  each  other.  Of  all  people  the  ethnographer 
must  bear  that  well  in  mind.  Further,  the  denser  population  is  confined  to  the 
coast  spaces,  while  the  interior  is  thinly  inhabited.  Rapid  changes  from  habitation 
to  non-habitation  are  frequent  under  these  conditions  ;  nor  is  the  list  of  islands 
now  uninhabited,  but  showing  traces  of  former  habitation,  a  short  one.      The 


iS6 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


majority  of  the  Pacific  islands  lie  in  a  region  where  the  prevailing  currents  and 
winds  move  in  a  westerly  direction,  north  and  south  of  the  equator,  between  the 
annual  isothermals  of  68°.  It  has  often  been  pointed  out  how  the  prevailing  east 
to  west  direction  of  the  trade-winds  would  facilitate  immigration  from  the  New 


Bread-fruit  tree  [Artocarpus  incisus)  :   (a)  inflorescence,  (b)  fruit. 

World.  In  small  districts  the  influence  of  the  winds  and  currents  is  no  doubt 
great ;  but  the  facts  of  migrations  and  castings-away  show  that,  thougfl  it  may 
often  determine  the  lines  of  distribution  of  mankind,  it  does  not  always  do  so. 
In  more  recent  times,  meteorology  has  no  less  shown  us  the  existence  of  westerly 
currents  of  air,  than  a  study  of  the  ocean  has  taught  us  that  there  is  an  equatorial 
counter-current  in  the  same  direction.  In  their  regular  traffic  the  Polynesians 
wait  for  a  west  wind  to  sail  eastwards,  and  they  have  a  corresponding  tradition 
that  their  domestic  animals  were  brought  from  the  west.     By  the  time  we  reach 


THE  RACES   OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND    THEIR  MIGRATIONS 


157 


the   Hervey  or  Cook's,  and  Tubuai  or  Austral  groups,  the  west  winds,  which  in 
the  southern  hemisphere  prevail  south  of  20°,  begin  to  make  themselves  felt. 

The  flora  and  fauna  of  this  region,  the  pronounced  Asiatic  character  of  which 
Chamisso  was  the  first  to  refer  to  the  eastward  migration  of  the  Oceanians,  have 
little  to  offer  for  human  use.  Some  of  the  most  important  cultivated  plants 
and  domesticated  animals  have  been  imported ;  such  as  pigs,  dogs,  poultry, 
faro,  and  perhaps  bananas  too.  But  the  tree  which  is  most  closely  connected 
with  the  island  world,  and  which  does  most  to  give  a  character  to  its  landscape, 
the  coco-nut,  renders  existence 
possible  even  to  the  inhabitants 
of  the  remote  and  low -lying 
islands.  While  green,  the  nut 
contains  a  liquid  which  is  cool- 
ing when  fresh  and  intoxicating 
when  fermented.  The  olea- 
ginous kernel,  when  older,  is 
nutritious  and  gives  oil  in 
abundance.  The  shell  of  the 
nut  provides  vessels ;  the 
fibres  of  its  outer  side  furnish 
a  durable  fabric ;  the  leaves 
are  used  for  thatching  houses, 
plaiting  mats,  sails,  or  baskets  ; 
the  stem  serves  for  building 
huts  and  boats.  Lastly,  the 
coco-nuts  with  their  spreading 
roots  contribute  to  hold  the 
coral  islands  together  and  to 
extend  their  area  ;  being,  as 
they  are,  among  their  earliest 
and  most  frequent  inhabitants 
of  the  islands.  Next  to  the 
coco-palm  the  bread-fruit  tree 
is  the  most  profitable  of  all  things  grown  and  cultivated  in  Polynesia.  Cook's 
saying,  that  six  bread-fruit  trees  would  keep  a  family,  is  well  known.  In  the 
third  place  comes  the  chief  article  of  real  agriculture,  the  taro  plant.  It  and 
the  bread-fruit  together  have  made  life  almost  too  easy  in  those  parts.  The 
sago-palm  extends  from  the  west  as  far  as  Melanesia  ;  a  great  part  of  the  popu- 
lation of  New  Guinea  is  dependent  on  it. 

Thus,  in  spite  of  their  wide  distribution,  almost  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
central  Pacific  have  the  more  important  conditions  of  life  in  common.  If  to  this 
we  add  the  common  possession  of  a  mass  of  ethnographic  characteristics  we  shall  see 
that,  in  spite  of  significant  racial  differences,  Polynesia,  Micronesia,  and  Melanesia 
form  a  single  ethnographical  domain.  Islands  of  their  nature  make  their 
inhabitants  seamen  and  wanderers.  Accordingly  we  have  here  a  region  of 
extensive  colonisation,  and  we  find  settlements  from  one  group  of  races  in  the 
district  of  another ;  though,  by  a  curious  contrast,  in  countries  like  New  Guinea 
or  New  Zealand,  where  there  is  such  ample  room  for  extension  in  the  interior,  the 


^^'S-'^^^^^J^'^'jB^ 


Taro  [Caladium  esciilenUini) — one-half  natural  size. 


THE   HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


people  stick,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  to  the  coast.  Implements  and  customs 
connected  with  seafaring  and  fishing  show  a  general  agreement.  They  must  all  do 
without  iron,  and  consequently  have  much  skill  in  the  working  of  stone,  wood,  and 
shells.  In  weaving,  they  have  attained  a  high  level  ;  the  loom  has  spread  from 
the  west,  while  in  the  east  and  south  they  manufacture  bark  and  bast.  The 
few  domestic  animals,  the  usual  fruits  of  the  field,  and  the  intoxicating  kava  or  ava, 
are  found  throughout  all  three  districts.  In  the  social  life  the  preponderance  of 
the  tribe  or  commune  over  the  family  is  more  pronounced  than  perhaps  anywhere 
else  ;  while  in  the  realm  of  religious  conceptions  there  has  arisen,  out  of  a  large 
number  of  ideas  common  to  all  Polynesia,  one  of  the  most  complete  mythological 
systems  owned  by  any  primitive  race,  which,  with  its  luxuriance  of  legend,  has. 
overspread  this  vast  area,  and  parts  yet  more  remote. 

The  present  population  of  the  Pacific  in  the  space  between  the  western 
promontory  of  New  Guinea  and  Easter  Island,  and  between  the  Hawaiian 
Archipelago  and  New  Zealand,  is  reckoned  at  not  more  than  a  million  and  a  half, 
not  including  whites.  Yet  even  to-day  on  some  of  the  Polynesian  islands  we  find 
such  a  density  as  borders  on  over-population.  The  Kingsmill,  or  Gilbert,  group 
counts  35,000  in  less  than  200  square  miles,  the  Marshall  Islands  12,000  in  170. 
But  these  are  all  cases  in  which  the  inhabitants  of  small  islands  have  the  run 
of  the  coco  plantations  and  fishing-grounds  belonging  to  an  entire  archipelago. 
Tonga  too — for  one  of  the  less  bountifully  endowed  groups, — the  Solomon  Islands, 
the  Bismarck  Archipelago,  show  a  population  that  is  relatively  not  at  all  thin. 
Generally  the  smaller  areas  of  land  tend  to  a  closer  packing  of  the  population. 
But  the  great  majority  of  the  Pacific  islands  hold  far  fewer  persons  to-day  belong- 
ing to  the  original  native  races  than  they  did  before  the  arrival  of  European 
influences.  We  must  look  not  only  at  the  figures,  but  at  the  geographical  aspect. 
The  South  Island  of  New  Zealand  and  the  Chatham  Islands  have  no  longer  any 
but  a  small  and  vanishing  aboriginal  population,  and  these  crowded  back  into  the 
furthest  corner  ;  while  all  the  natural  advantages  have  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
more  numerous  and  more  active  white  inhabitants.  The  number  of  the  Maoris 
between  1835  and  1840  was  reckoned  with  good  reason  at  100,000;  to-day 
there  are  42,000,  including  numerous  half-breeds,  who  will  soon  be  the  sole 
survivors.  So  it  is  with  Hawaii,  and  so  even  with  the  small  islands.  If  we 
inquire  the  causes  of  this  phenomenon,  which  has  already  given  occasion  for  great 
dislocations  in  the  regions  of  races  and  peoples,  we  find  them  everywhere  the 
same.  After  the  remarks  made  in  the  Introduction  (pp.  1 1,  12),  we  can  sum  up 
the  causes  in  the  words  used  by  Pennefather  in  1888  as  applied  to  the  case  of 
the  Maoris  :  drunkenness  ;  diseases  ;  clothing  in  bad  European  materials  instead 
of  in  their  own  close-woven  mats  ;  a  state  of  peace,  which  has  allowed  them  to  fall 
into  indolence,  and  to  exchange  healthy  dwellings  on  fortified  hills  for  damp  sites  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  their  potato-fields  ;  ^  prosperity,  which  has  introduced  leisure 
and  pernicious  modes  of  enjoying  it.  Progress  on  the  lines  of  European  custom 
is  opposed  by  their  hereditary  usages,  especially  their  political  subdivision  and  the 
absence  of  private  property  in  land.  But  the  cannibalism  of  the  Maoris  has 
played  a  special  part  in  the  destruction  of  the  Maoraris  of  the  Chatham  Islands. 

The  importation  of  European  diseases  has  in  many  districts  accelerated  the 

'  [Yet,  says  the  late  Mr.  Stevenson,  the  Marquesans  are  dying  out  in  the  same  houses  where  their  fathers 
multiplied.] 


THE  RACES  OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND    THEIR  MIGRATIONS  159 

rate  of  decrease.  Kubary's  inquiry  into  the  astonishing  disappearance  of  the 
Pelew  Islanders,  the  most  complete  and  comprehensive  inquiry  that  we  have  for  any 
portion  of  Oceania,  reveals  a  whole  string  of  internal  causes.  Important  pheno- 
mena in  the  social  life  of  the  island  races,  such  as  adoption  in  its  various  forms, 
the  descent  of  titles  to  sons,  the  ruined  state  of  large  houses,  point  to  a  long 
previous  period  of  this  lamentable  decrease.  The  natives  wrongly  ascribe  it  to 
the  climatic  disorder,  influenza  ;  but  the  main  cause  must  be  sought  in  their 
dissolute  way  of  life,  particularly  in  the  case  of  the  women.  The  deficiency  of 
births  is  so  great  that  total  extinction  is  anticipated  in  the  near  future.  Early 
licentiousness  in  both  sexes  ;  special  features  in  married  life  of  a  kind  to  deter 
the  younger  women,  so  far  as  possible,  from  entering  into  bonds,  and  to  inflict 
upon  the  others  the  heavy  labour  of  ta7'o  cultivation,  keeping  couples  apart  and 
placing  considerations  of  utility  before  everything ;  lastly,  the  practice  of  head- 
hunting, which  is  not  yet  obsolete.  Kubary  stated  in  1883  that  in  the  last  ten 
years  only  thirty-four  heads  had  been  cut  off;  these  causes  offer  a  sufficient  ex- 
planation. In  the  light  of  the  description  given  by  the  writer  just  quoted,  the 
entire  population  would  seem  to  be  in  a  morbid  state,  what  with  a  tendency  to 
dysentery,  induced  by  living  exclusively  on  taro,  the  prevalence  of  intestinal 
parasites,  the  liability  of  all  the  older  people  to  chronic  rheumatism  as  a  result 
of  the  climate  and  the  exposure  of  the  naked  body,  and  the  lack  of  endurance 
of  the  man  under  circumstances  of  bodily  exertion. 

This  decrease  is  in  close  connection  with  a  decadence  from  levels  of  develop- 
ment formerly  attained  in  political  and  social  matters,  and  even  in  arts  and 
crafts.  In  Micronesia  they  have  ceased  to  build  the  large  club  or  assembly 
houses  of  former  days  ;  and  therewith  a  source  of  endless  encouragement  to  fancy 
and  skill  has  been  dried  up.  The  people  make  fewer  things  than  they  used  to 
do — their  originality  has  died  out ;  they  are  in  a  way  to  become  poor  ethno- 
graphically.  A  glance  into  the  past  of  these  races  reveals  remains  of  bygone 
generations,  telling  of  another  state  of  things,  of  a  larger  population,  of  more 
considerable  results  from  labour,  of  more  enduring  works.  In  the  small  Louisiade 
group  there  is  a  network  of  roads  far  closer  than  is  wanted  by  the  present  popu- 
lation. On  Pitcairn's  Island,  now  deserted,  there  are  the  stone  foundations  of 
morais,  stone-axes,  and  in  the  caves  skeletons  lying  near  drawings  of  the  moon, 
stars,  birds,  and  so  on  ;  ancient  fortifications  crown  the  hills  of  Rapa,  while  in 
Huahine  in  the  Windward  Islands  a  dolmen,  built  on  to  a  morai  in  terraces,  is 
found  beside  a  road  of  cyclopean  stones.  The  ruins  of  Nanmatal  in  Ponap^ 
consist  of  square  chambers,  fenced  with  pillars  of  basalt  and  separated  from  each 
other  by  channels.  There  are  eighty  of  these  stone  islets  ;  some  of  them  having 
undoubtedly  once  served  as  sepulchral  monuments.  Among  these  ruins  the  tomb 
of  the  kings  of  Matalanim  rises,  on  a  base  6  feet  high  and  290  feet  long  by  230 
broad,  to  a  height  of  about  30  feet,  with  walls  10  feet  thick,  formed  of  basalt 
columns. 

The  most  classical  instances  of  this  wealth  of  relics  left  by  a  more  numerous 
and  more  active  generation  are  preserved  in  Easter  Island.  There  the  gigantic 
stone  images  are  something  wonderful.  Their  great  number  is  no  less  astonishing 
than  their  size  and  the  comparative  high  level  of  their  workmanship.  Even  now  they 
are  reckoned  at  several  hundreds  ;  their  height  is  nearly  50  feet,  while  in  one  case 
the  breadth  across  the  shoulders  is  not  less  than  i  o  feet.      Many  of  them  have 


i6o 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


been  thrown  down  and  half-buried  in  rubbish  ;  but  others  stand  on  broad  plat- 
forms built  of  hewn  stone.  Originally  many  are  said  to  have  had  head-covermgs 
of  reddish  stone  ;  cylinders,  according  to  Cook's  description,  of  5  feet  diameter. 
Some  have  hieroglyphics  carved  on  their  backs.  These  images,^  weighing  many 
tons,  must  at  one  time  have  been  lowered  down  the  mountain  with  hawsers,  and 
prepared,  that  is,  engraved,  in  pits  below.  Naturally  these  images,  whose  number, 
size,  and  clever  workmanship  contrast  so  strangely  with  the  smallness  of  the 
island,  and  the  state  of  extreme  simplicity  in  which  the  first  Europeans  found 
the  islanders,  have  given  rise   to   many  speculations  as  to  their  origin.      Even  so 


Sepulchral  monument  in  Ponap^,  Caroline  Islands.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album.) 


sober  a  judge  as  Beechey  declares  it  to  be  simply  impossible  that  the  Easter 
Islanders  can  have  executed  these  works  ;  both  the  sculpturing  and  the  erection 
of  them,  he  thinks,  far  exceeded  any  capacity  of  theirs.  What  makes  it  yet 
more  difficult  to  answer  these  questions  is  the  ignorance  in  which  we  are  as  to 
their  age,  as  to  the  reason  why  so  many  have  been  thrown  down,  and,  lastly,  as 
to  their  object.  Earthquakes  of  course  may  have  thrown  them  down  ;  but  no 
observer,  old  or  recent,  has  been  able  to  divine  the  purpose  they  served.  The 
impression  of  decadence  which  one  receives  from  the  sight  of  such  mighty  works 
among  a  race  now  so  scanty,  feeble,  and  impoverished,  is  strengthened  when  we 
find  that  Easter  Island  shows  masonry  adapted  to  various  purposes  in  the  shape 
sometimes  of  staged  platforms,  sometimes  of  huts,  above  or  j  below  ground,  and 
with  or  without  interior  ornament  in  colour. 

Oceania,  as  being,  of  all  regions  which  men  inhabit,  the  richest  in  islands,  the 
poorest  in  land,  seems  at  the  first  glance  a  most  favourable  soil  on  which  to  study 
isolated  evolutions  of  civilization.  It  is,  however,  a  region  of  constant  intercourse, 
and  nowhere  offers  a  wide  or  fertile  soil  for  permanently  independent  evolution. 


THE  RACES  OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND   THEIR  MIGRATIONS  i6i 

It  furnishes  interesting  evidence  of  the  special  directions  in  which  individual 
elements  in  the  fund  of  civilization  possessed  by  a  "  natural "  race  can  develop, 
but  it  shows  us  no  persistency  of  a  single  racial  type  and  a  special  civilization. 
Instead  of  the  deep  gradations  which  divide  the  Fuegian,  a  kind  of  Bushman  or 
Hottentot,  from  the  Inca  of  Peru,  expert  in  many  arts,  rich;  devoted  to  sun- 
worship  ;  Oceania  displays,  in  the  domain  of  culture,  only  slight  variations  on 
the  same  ground-theme.  Its  great  problem  is  not  the  tranquil  development  of 
local  peculiarities,  but  the  equalising  effect  of  migration  from  one  archipelago  to 
another,  and  ultimately  from  quarter  to  quarter  of  the  earth. 

The  distribution  of  Malayo-Polynesian  races  over  an  area  covering  210  degrees 
of  longitude  and   80   of  latitude,  is  an  astounding  fact.      It  gains   in   signiiicance 


Outrigged  boat,  New  Britain.     (From  a  model  in  the  Godeffroy  collection,  Leipzig. ) 

when  we  renlember  that  wide  tracts  of  very  deep  ocean  divide  these  islands,  while 
the  islands  are  so  small  that  even  exploring  navigators  did  not  discover  them 
till  late,  and  then  with  difficulty.  No  cause  appeared  too  vast  to  explain  such  a 
phenomenon,  and  we  cannot  be  surprised  that  not  only  older  inquirers  like 
Quiros,  or  seafaring  men  like  Crozet  and  Dumont  d'Urville,  but  even  a  man  like 
Broca  ^  could  admit  the  idea  that  in  this  island-world  we  have  the  remains  of  a 
submerged  continent.  Even  the  hypothesis  of  a  separate  creation  of  races  so 
isolated  has  been  brought  into  play  here.  But  migrations  of  the  islanders  are 
mentioned  even  by  Forster  and  Cook  ;  and  have  been  more  and  more  recognised 
as  the  great  fact  in  the  ethnography  of  the  Pacific.  Numerous  indeed  are  the 
records  of  accidental  involuntary  migrations.  When  Cook  came  to  Watiu  in 
1777,  his  Tahitian  companion  Mai  found  there  three  fellow-countrymen,  all  that 
were  left  of  twenty,  from  Tahiti,  750  miles  distant,  who  had  been  cast  away  twelve 
years  before.  In  1825  Beechey  found  on  Byam  Martin  Island  forty  men,  women, 
and  children,  the  survivors  of  150  from  Matia,  who  some  years  before  had  been 
caught  in  an  unwontedly  early  monsoon,  and  driven  625  miles  to  Barrow  Island  ; 
subsequently   leaving   this   on   account   of  its  barrenness,   and    settling  on   Byam  ,^ 

^  [Not  to  mention  Darwin  and  Lyell.] 
M 


l62 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MAXKI^D 


Martin.  A  remarkable  point  in  this  is  that  the  course  from  Matia  to  Barrow 
Island  is  against  the  trades.  In  1816  Kotzebue  found  on  Aur,  one  of  the 
Radack  Islands,  a  native  of  Ulie,  who  had  been  cast  away  with  three  others 
while  fishing,  and  covered  a  distance  of  1850  miles  against  the  trades.  Inhabit- 
ants of  Ulie  were  carried  to  the  Marshall  Islands  also  in  1857;  Ralick  islanders 
to  the  Gilberts,  Gilbert  islanders  to  the  Marshalls,  and  westward  to  the  Carolines ; 
and  Finsch  reports  a  more  recent  case  of  castaways  from  Jaluit  or  Bonham 
Island  to  Faraulep  in  the  western  Carolines,  a  distance  of  1500  nautical  miles. 
During  his  short  stay  on  Yap,  and  then  in   Pelew,  Miklouho-Maclay  often  met 


Boat  of  the  Mortlock  Islands,  with  outrigger  and  sail  of  rush-matting.     (After  a  model  in  the 

Godeffroy  collection. ) 

people  who  had  been  cast  away  on  other  islands  and  had  returned.  ,  Kubary,  in 
his  account  of  the  Pelew  Islands,  mentions  as  a  well-known  fact  that  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  Carolines  are  often  driven  to  the  Philippine  Islands.  In  every  case 
they  make  the  island  of  Samar  or  the  most  southerly  point  of  Luzon,  just  where 
the  northern  equatorial  current  breaks  on  the  island  wall  of  the  Philippines.  On 
the  other  hand,  inhabitants  of  the  Philippines  seem  never  to  have  come  to  Pelew, 
though  plenty  come  from  Celebes  and  the  islands  in  the  Celebes  Straits. 

Another  region  where  people  are  often  cast  away  is  in  and  about  the  Fiji 
Archipelago,  its  boundaries  being  indicated  by  Tikopia,  Lifu,  Savaii  and  Vavao. 
Active  as  the  regular  intercourse  may  be  between  Tonga  and  Fiji,  the  presence 
of  numerous  Tongan  and  Fijian  half-breeds  exactly  on  the  windward  side  of  the 
Fiji  Archipelago  would  suggest  that  people  had  been  driven  westwards,  even  had 


THE  RACES  OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND   THEIR  MIGRATIONS 


163 


we  not  clear  evidence  that  they  have  been  driven  from  Tonga  and  Savaii  to  the 
still  more  westerly  islands  of  the  Banks  group,  to  the  New  Hebrides,  and  the 
Loyalty  Islands.  They  appear  even  to  have  got  to  the  central  Solomon 
Islands.  It  is  when  we  come  within  the  Melanesian  groups  that  these  movements 
gain  in  interest,  owing  to  the  large  number  of  Polynesians  to  be  found  there,  or 
the  traces,  often  so  clear,  of  Polynesian  influence. 


Boat  of  Niue,  Savage  Islands.     (After  a  model  in  the  Godeffroy  collection.) 

A  third  region  is  even  more  important  by  reason  of  its  local  connection  with 
the  Polynesian  legends  of  migrations.  It  embraces  the  Hervey  or  Cook  Islands, 
the  Tubuai  or  Austral   Islands,  the  Paumotu  or  Low  Islands,  and  the  Society 


Boat  of  the  Hermit  Islands.     (From  the  same). 

Islands.  To  supplement  the  instances  already  given  we  may  mention  the 
involuntary  journey  of  Williams  in  a  boat  from  Rarotonga  to  Tongatabu,  and 
that  of  several  natives  from  Aitutaki  to  Niue  ;  in  both,  cases  distances  of  a  thousand 
miles  were  traversed  in  a  westerly  direction.  Those  natives  of  Manihiki  who  were 
driven  by  a  storm  to  the  Ellice  group  in  1861,  and  there  spread  the  first 
Christian  teaching,  accomplished  a  still  longer  course.  Between  the  Society 
Islands,  especially  Tahiti,  and  the  Paumotu  group,  a  particularly  close  connection 
has  been  established  by  frequent  castings-away  both  with  and  against  the  trades. 
Cases  have  been  known  here  also  in  which  persons  have  been  driven  southward. 


1 54 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


but  never  beyond  the  tropic,  so  that  no  connection  has  been  formed  with  New 
Zealand.  Finally,  we  have  evidence  in  involuntary  journeys  made  from  Tahiti  to 
Byam  Martin  and  Bow  Islands  that,  especially  during  the  summer,  it  is  possible  for 
vessels  to  be  driven  against  trade  winds  and  currents  in  an  easterly  direction, 
that  is  to  say  in  the  direction  in  which  the  Easter  Islanders  must  have  reached  their 
remote  land. 

Reports  about  castaways  in  this  direction  from  the  continent  of  Asia  or  from 


Wooden  baler,  New  Zealand — one-sixth  real  size.     (British  Museum.) 

Japan  are  more  rare.  Apart  from  some  established  historical  cases  we  may  here 
refer  to  the  repeated  instances  of  persons  being  driven  from  Japan  northward  and 
eastward     to    Lopatka,    Kadjak,    and     Vancouver    Islands,    which    are    equally 

confirmed   by  history.       Even 
'  „  ~  '  '    "  from   China  ships  are  said  to 

have  been  cast  away  on  the 
north-west  coast  of  America. 
Evidence  of  journeys  in  the 
opposite  direction  is  afforded 
by  articles  of  undoubted  north- 
west American  origin  which 
come  ashore  on  the  coasts  of 
the  Hawaiian  Islands.  With 
the  South  American  continent 
there  are  no  manifest  relations, 
although  in  higher  latitudes 
westerly  winds  and  currents 
lead  towards  South  America, 
while  in  equatorial  regions 
they  are  easterly  and  lead 
away  irom  it.  The  only  conclusions  that  are  possible  here,  and  will  be  later 
investigated,  are  based  upon  the  data  of  ethnography. 

Even  if  we  regard  only  the  involuntary  journeys,  the  Pacific  Ocean  appears  no 
longer  as  a  watery  desert  where  islanders  live  in  seclusion  ;  but  mutual  relations 
of  the  most  varied  kind,  both  between  the  islands,  and  between  them  and  the 
continents,  become  manifest.  Castings-away  are  no  exception  but  the  rule  and 
take  people  in  every  direction.  Ethnography  has  to  take  account  of  these  casual 
relations  which  in  the  long  vista  of  years  have  stretched  a  dense  network  from 


^/-7 


Wooden  baler,  New  Zealand — one-fifth  real  size.      (British  Museum.) 


from 


THE  RACES  OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND    THEIR  MIGRATIONS 


i6s 


Wooden  baler,  New  Guinea — one-fifth  real  size. 
(British  Museum.) 


one  land  to  another.  She  must  give  up  the  idea  of  any  sharp  separation 
between  the  races  of  Oceania,  and  allowing  all  consideration  to  disunion  and 
peculiarity,  must  give  its  due  to  every  cause  which  makes  for  union. 

But  this  view  is  met  also  by  the  life  and  ways  of  the  Oceanians,  their  mode 
of  thought,  and  their  tradition.  There  is  in  them  a  pronounced  migratory  sense. 
Journeys  of  many  hundreds  of  miles  are  not  seldom  undertaken  by  them,  either 
for  the  purpose  of  falling  upon  the  inhabitants  of  neighbouring  islands  and  getting 
heads  for  their  canoe  houses,  or  in  order  to  meet  on  some  appointed  day  of  the 
year  for  a  general  exchange  of  goods.  The  inhabitants  of  Yap,  and  Simbo,  and 
the  Tongans  are  specially  renowned  for 
voyages  of  this  kind.  The  piratical 
inhabitants  of  Biak  also  traverse  hun- 
dreds of  miles  in  their  canoes.  Trade  is 
naturally  a  chief  cause  of  roaming.  The 
fact  that  in  the  Polynesian  islands  it  is 
mainly  carried  on  by  the  chiefs  or  on 
their  account  can  only  be  favourable  to 
the  enterprises,  since  none  but  they  have 
either  authority  or  knowledge  to  lead  the  greater  expeditions.  The  Tongans, 
who  monopolised  the  trade  between  Fiji  and  Samoa,  with  the  inhabitants  of 
Sikiyana,  of  Peleliu,  and  some  others,  are  noted  as  genuine  trading  races.  Division 
of  labour  in  trades  leads  of  necessity  to  exchange.      It  is  specially  to  be  observed 

that  the  higher  development  of  any 
industry,  as  of  pottery  in  Bilibili,  Teste, 
or  Moresby,  all  of  them  islands  off 
New  Guinea,  is  always  found  to  im- 
prove all  the  appliances  of  travel  and 
transport,  and  thus  especially  to  raise 
navigation  to  a  higher  level.  Political 
disturbances  again  have  created  numer- 
ous motives  for  migration.  Attacks 
of  one  island  upon  another,  flight  to 
remote  islands,  are  common  occur- 
rences. At  the  time  of  the  Spanish 
conquest  the  inhabitants  of  the  Marianne  Islands  took  refuge  in  the  Carolines. 
Tongans  fleeing  from  a  cannibal  chief  peopled  the  island  of  Pylstart  or  Ata ; 
Kaumualii,  when  threatened  by  attack  from  Kamehameha,  had  a  ship  made 
ready  in  Kauai,  in  order  that  he  might  fly  with  his  family  in  time  of  danger  to 
one  of  the  ocean  islands.  Lastly,  too,  hunger  was  a  spur  to  migration,  famines 
being  frequent.  Constant  contact  with  the  sea  has  given  birth  to  a  spirit  of 
adventure  for  which  the  aristocratic  constitution  of  society  provides  nourishment 
and  tools.  The  Tongans  may  well  reckon  as  the  Phoenicians  of  South  Poly- 
nesia ;  Samoans  and  P"ijians  never  ventured  upon  the  journey  to  Tonga  except 
in  boats  manned  by  Tongan  seamen.  Nor,  moreover,  are  real  wandering  tribes 
lacking.  Lastly,  we  must  not  forget  the  low  value  placed  upon  human  life 
in  all  island  countries  with  a  tendency  to  over-population.  Infanticide,  human 
sacrifices,  cannibalism,  a  permanent  state  of  war,  are  sufficient  explanations  of  this, 
and  from  the  same  root  springs  also  the  love  of  emigration. 


Stick  chart  from  the  Marshall  Islands. 
Collection). 


(Godeffroy 


1 66  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Among  no  "  natural "  races  has  the  science  of  seafaring  reached  so  high  an 
average  development  as  among  the  Polynesians  and  Melanesians.  Most  of  the 
tribes  are  genuine  seamen.  If  we  regard  their  remoteness  from  the  great  civilized 
races  of  the  Asiatic  continent,  the  shipbuilding  art  stands  as  high  among  them  as 
among  the  Malays  ;  and  we  must  further  reflect  that  they  were  without  iron. 
Naturally  here  also  local  limitations  produce  inequalities  in  shipbuilding,  as  well 
as  in  the  extent  of  the  voyages,  and  also  in  the  migrations  of  the  different  races. 
It  is  a  fact  that  at  the  present  day  the  Fijians  seldom  go  beyond  the  bouijdaries 
of  their  own  group,  while  the  Tongans,  favoured  by  the  wind,  often  come  to  them. 
But  the  art  of  navigation,  no  less  than  that  of  shipbuilding,  may  undergo 
alterations  in  the  course  of  time.  Fortunate  voyages  raise  the  spirit  of 
enterprise,  bad  luck  depresses  it.  The  Samoa  group  got  its  former  name  of  the 
Navigator  Islands  from  the  seafaring  skill  of  its  inhabitants  ;  this  has  now  greatly 
decreased.  Many  of  the  low  islands  are  so  poorly  wooded  that  shipbuilding  is 
rendered  difficult,  and  dependent  on  drift  timber  ;  while  at  Port  Moresby  on  the 
New  Guinea  coast  the  Motus,  having  little  wood,  build  as  a  rule  no  vessels. 
They  do  not,  however  (like  the  Caribs  in  a  well-known  couplet),  content  them- 
selves with  "  wishing  they  could,"  but  draw  upon  their  more  expert  neighbours 
for  them.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  the  islanders  of  the  Paumotu  group,  where 
wood  is  also  scarce,  build  larger  and  better  vessels  than  the  Marquesans.  The 
small  area  and  poverty  of  their  islands  force  them  both  to  peaceable  migrations 
and  to  warlike  expeditions  of  conquest,  and  this  can  only  be  done  by  sea. 

Vessels  of  every  description,  from  the  simple  raft  and  the  sailing  vessel  with 
outrigger,  or  the  double  canoe,  are  found  in  this  region.  We  do  not  need  to 
notice  the  rafts  of  bamboo  made  by  the  Pelew  Islanders  for  the  navigation  of  an 
inland  lake,  since  opportunities  for  inland  navigation  are  not  usual  throughout 
the  region  ;  but  rafts  are  actually  in  use  for  coasting  purposes.  Among  the 
families  whom  Cook  found  in  Dusky  Bay  there  were  no  boats,  only  a  single  raft 
made  of  tree-stems  for  putting  people  across.  Next  we  come  to  boats  made  simply 
of  stems,  which,  being  fastened  together  and  planked  over,  become  raft-like  vessels. 
Such  boat-rafts  have  led  to  the  erroneous  idea  that  the  New  Caledonians,  for 
example,  sailed  the  seas  on  rafts.  As  a  matter  of  fact  these  people  have  only 
a  kind  of  rough  raft,  resting  on  two  hollowed  tree-stems,  and  carrying  a  mast 
with  a  triangular  mat-sail.  The  Kunai  people  have  double  canoes,  and  those  of 
very  pretty  work.  The  Loyalty  Islands'  canoes  are  inferior  to  these,  but  are 
also  double,  with  a  platform,  two  triangular  mat-sails,  and  oars  6  feet  long,  passing 
through  holes  in  the  platform.  A  long  oar  serves  for  steering,  and  so  they  sail 
to  New  Caledonia.  At  Hood  Bay  in  New  Guinea  rafts  are  used  resting  on  five 
trunks  ;  on  a  single  platform  these  carry  as  many  as  a  hundred  men  and  quantities 
of  goods.      They  carry  one  or  two  masts,  a  stone  anchor,  and  a  mat-sail. 

It  is  not  usual  for  single  trunks  to  be  used  exclusively  for  seafaring  ;  but  in 
coast  navigation  and  fishing  they  meet  local  requirements,  even  where  large 
regularly  built  vessels  exist.  We  find  them  in  Tahiti,  under  the  name  of  huhu 
or  shells,  usually  sharp  at  one  end  and  seldom  holding  more  than  two  men. 
But  such  is  the  development  of  boat-building,  that  the  smallest  boats  are,  where 
necessary,  built  with  great  care  in  several  pieces.  On  Waituhi  the  Paumotu 
Islanders  have  a  great  number  of  small  boats,  put  together  of  coco-palm  wood, 
1 6  feet  long  at  most,  capable  of  being  carried  by  two  persons  and  of  carrying  two 


THE  RACES   OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND    THEIR  MIGRATIONS  167 

or  three ;  they  have  pointed  pieces  specially  fixed  on  fore  and  aft,  an  outrigger 
and  two  recurved  paddles. 

The  Tahitians  build  their  boats  of  several  pieces,  for  the  very  good  reason 
that  large  timber,  such  as  the  Maoris  obtain  from  the  Kauri  pine,  does  not  grow 
in  their  island.  In  the  Society  Islands,  elegant  double  canoes,  known  as  "  twins," 
are  made  by  patting  together  two  single  stems,  which  must  exactly  match. 
The  kabekel  of  the  Pelew  Islands  is  a  vessel  between  60  and  70  feet  long,  usually 
hewn  out  of  one  large  tree-stem,  and  pulling  as  many  as  forty  paddles.  Its  beam 
and  depth  are  very  small  for  its  great  length.  The  entire  Vessel  is  merely  a 
hollowed-out  keel,  supported  in  the  water  by  the  outrigger  attached  to  one  side. 
A  kind  of  deck  made  of  bamboo  is  arranged  amidships,  on  which  the  leader  takes 
his  place,  and  the  baggage  is  packed. 

These  single-tree  craft  afford  the  basis  also  for  the  larger  built  ships.  The 
keel  of  these  consists  of  a  stem  hollowed  out  by  means  of  fire,  or,  in  the  bigger 
vessels,  of  several.  Large  ships  are  found  chiefly  in  Fiji,  Tonga,  Samoa,  and 
New  Zealand  ;  and  the  number  of  boats  is  correspondingly  large.  In  Tahiti, 
Forster  saw  a  fleet  of  159  large  double  canoes  and  70  smaller  craft.  The  small 
Ones  in  many  cases  travel  very  fast,  and  serve  as  despatch-boats  to  the  larger. 

The  tree  or  trees  intended  for  a  ship  will  be  felled  to  the  recital  of  religious 
sentences,  and  then  hollowed  by  means  of  fire.  While  many  of  the  natives  are 
qualified  for  this  task,  the  actual  building  is  in  the  hands  of  a  privileged  class  ; 
so  closely  were  the  interests  of  state  and  society  once  bound  up  with  this  art 
and  mystery.  Even  to  the  present  day  in  Fiji  the  carpenters,  whose  chief  work 
is  shipbuilding,  form  a  special  caste.  They  bear  the  high-sounding  title  of  "  the 
king's  craftsmen  "  and  have  the  privileges  of  real  chiefs.  These  highly-honoured 
artisans  carry  on  their  trade  of  shipbuilding  with  particular  care.  Planks  are 
attached  to  the  keel,  stern  and  bow  provided  with  carved  ornaments,  sails  and 
ropes  are  all  finished  and  fitted  by  special  workmen,  and  the  outriggers  prepared 
by  others.  Everything  is  done  according  to  old  tradition  ;  the  laying  of  the  keel, 
the  finishing  of  the  whole,  the  launching,  all  take  place  with  religious  ceremonies 
and  festivities.  Tangaroa  was  the  patron  of  shipmen,  and  they  bore  his  worship 
all  over  the  Ocean.  Even  the  gods  themselves  like  to  build  ships,  and  undertake 
daring  voyages. 

The  Fijian  ships  long  held  the  first  place  among  the  craft  of  the  Pacific 
islands.  When  Cook  first  visited  Tonga  in  1772,  he  found  Fijians  there  who 
had  brought  a  Tongan  of  high  rank  to  his  own  island  in  their  ship.  The  Tongan 
vessels  at  that  time  were  clumsy  compared  with  those  of  Fiji,  and  for  that  reason 
they  accepted  this  with  its  sails  as  a  gift.  They  have  only  altered  the  Fijian 
model  to  the  extent  of  cleverly  improving  the  accuracy  and  fineness  with  which 
various  portions  are  executed.  These  Fijian  vessels  with  Tongan  improvements 
belong  to  a  type  spread  throughout  Micronesia,  in  which,  by  reversing  the  sail, 
bow  and  stern  are  convertible.  Thus  Fijian  chiefs  took  to  employing  by  prefer- 
ence carpenters  from  Tonga;  which  gave  rise  to  the  belief  that  the  Tongans 
built  their  vessels  in  Fiji  for  the  sake  of  the  better  wood.  The  New  Caledonian 
ships  are  like  the  Samoan,  but  less  well  built  and  slower.  The  vessels  of  the 
Loyalty  Islands  are  also  clumsy ;  a  fact  the  more  remarkable  since  both  these 
groups  contain  admirable  material  in  their  great  pines.  In  the  Solomon  Islands 
shipbuilding  has  attained  a  high  level,  but  here  too  there  are  gradations.     The 


1 68  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


most  elegant  and  the  lightest  craft  in  that  archipelago  are  built  in  Ulakua.  In 
the  more  westerly  islands  the  war-vessels  are  extraordinarily  rich  with  fantastic 
ornaments,  festoons  of  feathers  and  bast,  coloured  red  and  yellow,  shells,  and  so 
forth.  In  New  Ireland  the  boats  differ  materially  from  those  of  New  Hanover; 
they  are  equally  made  of  a  single  tree  stem,  but  are  not  so  long  and  not  curved 
in  the  gunwale.  The  boat  of  New  Britain  is  mostly  made  from  one  stem,  but 
has  often  a  low  strake  on  each  side.  It  is  on  the  average  larger  than  that  of  New 
Ireland,  and  has  a  high  narrow  beak  at  each  end. 

The  larger  boats  of  New  Guinea  are  from  i6  to  20  feet  long,  and  from 
2  to  2\  wide.  The  hull,  made  in  one  piece,  is  hollowed  out  from  a  trunk  which 
must  have  no  flaw.  It  is  not  more  than  half  an  inch  thick,  and  has  cross-ties  to 
keep  it  from  warping.  Both  ends  curve  upwards  and  are  strengthened  with 
wooden  posts,  of  which  that  in  the  stem  rises  high  and  is  adorned  with  arabesques 
or  painted.  To  raise  the  gunwale  above  the  water  line  they  employ  the  ribs  of 
sago-palm  leaves  after  the  fashion  of  the  Alfurs.  These  are  by  preference  inter' 
laced,  and  then  being  attached  like  tiles  to  the  cross-ties,  form  a  water-tight ''v^ 
surface.  Over  the  gunwale  are  fastened  two  light  cross-pieces,  which  project  about 
5  feet,  and  at  the  end  of  which  is  another  piece  of  wood,  bent  at  right  angles,  just 
touching  the  surface  of  the  water,  and  sticking  into  a  strong  boom,  which  is  as 
light  as  cork  and  serves  as  a  float.  Amidships  on  the  cross-tinibers  a  square 
cabin  of  bamboo  is  erected,  sheltered  against  injury  from  weather  by  a  small  roof  ■  ■ 
of  coco-palm  leaves.  All  other  kinds  of  craft,  from  the  raft  upward,  are  found  in 
New  Guinea.      The  ornamentation  is  rich,  especially  of  the  war-canoes. 

In  Micronesia,  where  the  vessels  stand  next  in  quality  to  those  of  Fiji  and 
Tonga,  we  do  not  find  the  double  canoes  common  among  the  Polynesians.  Even 
the  great  vta^r-amlais,  holding  sixty  to  eighty  persons,  have  only  an  outrigger. 
Differences  can  be  noticed  between  one  island  and  another.  The  Pelew  canoes 
differ  from  all  those  in  use  in  the  South  Seas  by  being  very  low  in  proportion  to 
their  length  and  sail-area.  For  this  reason  they  are  not  adapted  for  such  long 
voyages  as  the  inhabitants  of  Yap,  or  those  of  Mackenzie  and  the  Ralick  Islands, 
undertake,  but  for  short  journeys  they  are  extraordinarily  effective.  The  light 
and  sharp  kaep,  driven  by  a  large  three-cornered  sail,  slips  over  the  water  like 
lightning  in  the  most  gentle  breeze.  Heavy  seas  find  no  resistance  in  these 
canoes,  they  lift  them  and  divide  on  the  sharp  angle  of  their  stems,  and  do  not 
check  their  way.  The  Micronesian  fashion  of  adorning  boats  with  bundles  of  the 
split  feathers  of  the  frigate-bird,  and  avoiding  carved  work,  comes  from  Polynesia. 

An  important  element  of  the  Polynesian  or  Melanesian  vessel  is  the  outrigger. 
This  is  shaped  and  fitted  on  in  various  ways,  and  is  of  various  sizes.  Light 
durable  woods  are  used  for  this  purpose  ;  in  the  eastern  districts  mostly  Pisonia, 
which,  even  in  the  Paumotu  Group,  reaches  a  height  of  65  feet,  while  in  the  west  .;. 
it  is  generally  Hibiscus,  as  light  as  cork,  or  an  Erythrina.  As  a  rule  the  outrigger 
is  fastened  to  the  vessel  by  two  booms  5  to  6  feet  in  length,  the  forward  one 
straight  and  stiff,  the  after  one  bent  and  elastic.  Among  the  Fijians  many  kinds 
of  craft  are  distinguished  solely  according  to  their  outriggers. 

The    sail — there    is    never    more    than    one — is    three-cornered,   composed    of 
plaited  mats,  or  woven  from  the  bast  of  the  leaf-stem  of  the  coco-palm,  bent  on  a 
frame  of  bamboos,  and   attached   to  the   mast   by  a  rope  passing  over  or  around  j; 
the   mast-head.      It  cannot  be   reefed.      As   an   article   of  trade   it   is   in    demancl 


THE  RACES   OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND   THEIR  MIGRATIONS 


169 


proportioned  to  its  importance.  In  large  vessels  the  steering  oar  is  20  feet 
long,  the  blade  over  6  feet,  requiring  two  or  three  men  to  handle  it  in  a  heavy  sea. 
The  ordinary  paddles  are  frequently  the  least  practical  part  of  t^ie  gear.  The 
blade  is  lancet-shaped,  often  decorated  at  the  pointed  end,  carved  about  the 
handle  with  figures  of  animals  or  other  ornaments.  Fancy  paddles  are  inlaid 
with  mother-of-pearl.  Where  they  are  as  strong  as  in  the  Solomon  Islands,  they 
can  be  used  on  occasion  for  clubs.  Even  the  balers,  with  their  often  elegantly 
carved  forms,  show  the  value  which  is  attached  to  the  humblest  nautical  imple- 
ments. The  balers  of  the  Admiralty  Islands,  with  their  single  horizontal  bar  for 
a  handle,  were  placed  by  Rear-Admiral  Strauch,  from  a  practical  point  of  view, 
above  those  made 
in  Europe.  Pre- 
serves, capable  of 
keeping  for  a  long 
time,  are  prepared 
for  voyages  from 
pandanpsAnd  bread- 
fruit ;  cocoa  -  nuts 
also  serve  as  pro- 
vision, and  their 
shells  can  be  filled 
with  water.  In  the 
large  war  boats  the 
number  of  rowers 
far  exceeds  1 00. 
Forster  speaks  of 
144  oarsmen,  Wil- 
son of  300  men  in 
a  single  boat.  The 
time  of  the  paddles 
is  given  by  singing. 
When  a  number  of 
boats  are  sailing  to- 
gether,    one      man 

stands  in  the  stern  of  the  leading  vessel  and  signals  the  course  with  a  bunch  of 
dry  grass. 

The  taking  of  proper  bearings  is  of  double  importance  in  this  ocean,  in  which 
the  individual  islands  are  often  so  far  apart  and  so  low-lying  that  one  is  astonished 
that  they  were  ever  found.  Many  islands  in  the  Pacific  were  discovered  for  the 
first  time  in  the  present  century.  The  islanders  are  keen  observers  of  the  stars, 
and  have  names  for  a  good  list  of  them.  They  distinguish  eight  quarters  of  the 
heaven  and  winds  to  match.  In  their  conception  of  the  world  the  ocean  is 
imagined  as  being  everywhere  full  of  islands,  which  helps  to  explain  their  daring 
voyages.  They  even  inscribe  their  geographical  knowledge  upon  maps,  but 
while  on. these  the  bearings  are  to  some  extent  correct,  the  distances  are  given 
very  inaccurately.  In  the  Ralick  group  the  preparation  of  maps  from  small 
straight  and  bent  sticks,  representing  routes,  currents,  and  islands,  is  a  secret  art 
among  the  chiefs.     The  Marshall  Islanders  also  possess  a  map  of  their  own,  made 


Boat  of  the  Luzon  1  agals. 


(From  a  model  m  Dr.  Hans  Meyer  s  Collection, 
Leipzig. ) 


lyo 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


up  of  little  sticks  and  stones,  showing  the  whole  group  (p.  165).  On  their  greater 
enterprises  they  go  to  sea  in  a  thoroughly  systematic  way  ;  the  longer  voyages  of 
from  500  to  1000  nautical  miles  are  undertaken  only  in  squadrons  comprising 
at  least  fifteen  canoes,  commanded  by  a  chief  who  has  one  or  more  pilots  to 
advise  him.  Without  compass,  chart,  or  lead,  and  with  but  limited  knowledge 
of  the  stars,  these  men  contrived  to  make  their  distant  point.  On  their  voyages 
they  steadily  observe  the  angle  made  by  the  canoe  with  the  run  of  the  sea 
caused  by  the  trade  wind,  which,  north  of  the  equator,  blows  steadily  from  the 
north-east.  The  use  of  this  run,  which  remains  constant  even  with  shifting 
winds,  has  been  brought  by  the  native  pilots  to  great  refinement.      The  ocean 

currents  are  also 
no  less  well 
known  to  them 
by  experience, 
so  that  they  are 
able  to  take  this 
also  into  con- 
sideration in  lay- 
ing their  course. 
As  a  general  rule, 
in  order  to  get 
the  largest  pos- 
sible field  of  view, 
the  squadron  pro- 
ceeds in  line  in 
which  the  indi- 
vidual canoes  are 
so  widely  separ- 
ated that  they 
can  only  com- 
municate by  signal.  By  this  progress  on  a  wide  front  they  avoid  the  danger  of 
sailing  past  the  island  they  are  looking  for.  During  the  night  the  squadron 
closes  in.  This  whole  style  of  navigation  contradicts  the  supposition  that  before 
the  invention  of  the  compass  only  coasting  voyages  were  undertaken. 

Polynesians  and  Micronesians  often  ship  on  board  European  vessels,  where 
they  prove  themselves,  apart  from  their  limited  physical  strength,  excellent  sea- 
men. The  Hawaiians  or  Kanakas,  who  are  often  tried  in  the  whale  fishery,  are, 
according  to  Wilkes,  skilful  men,  but  not  suited  for  service  on  board  a  man-of- 
war.  They  are  more  serviceable  in  small  than  in  large  parties,  being  very  fond  of 
putting  their  work  upon  some  one  else.  They  are  timid  about  going  aloft. 
Their  best  place  is  at  the  oar,  but  even  so,  when  going  through  the  surf,  they 
prefer  to  jump  overboard  and  swim.  On  board  a  man-of-war  they  find  difficulty 
in  accustoming  themselves  to.  the  word  of  command,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
whaling  ships  they  show  themselves  willing,  hard-working,  and  fearless. 

In  the  eastern  districts  the  navigation  of  the  Malays  connects  itself  with  that 
of  the  Micronesians.  Their  distant  expeditions  for  purposes  of  trade  or  piracy, 
which  ultimately  became  racial  migrations,  were  carried  on  in  outrigo-ed  or  double 
boats  with  triangular  reed  or  mat  sails,  and  to  this  very  day  many  of  the  Malayan 


Sumatran /raAa.     (From  model  in  the  Munich  Ethnographical  Museum.) 


THE  RACES  OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND    THEIR  MIGRATIONS  171 

prahus  of  recognised  excellence  have  not  an  ounce  of  iron  about  them.  Inland 
races  in  Malacca,  in  Borneo,  Luzon,  and  other  islands,  have  no  vessels  at  all,  and 
there  are  some  fishing  tribes  who  get  along  with  bamboo  rafts  (so-called  cata- 
marans) after  the  Chinese  model,  and  dug-out  canoes.  The  races  who  have  been 
most  operative  in  the  history  of  this  widespread  group,  whether  they  be  genuine 
Malays  or  Alfurs,  Tagals  or  Goramese,  are  distinguished  by  their  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  sea,  to  which  in  great  measure  they  owe  their  conspicuous 
position.  These  are  the  races  of  whom  it  has  been  said  that  they  would  never 
build  a  house  on  dry  land  if  they  could  find  a  place  in  the  water.  Their  skill 
in  navigation  is  sufficient  to  meet  even  European  requirements.  The  prahus 
belonging  to  the  once  piratical  village  of  Sounsang  in  Sumatra  on  the  Palcmbang 
coast,  carried  the  post  between  Palembang  and  Muntok  for  years,  across  the 
tempestuous  Banca  Straits  ;  and  never  within  the  memory  of  man  were  these 
light  vessels  seriously  behind  time.  The  Government  of  the  Dutch  Indies  employ 
none  but  natives,  mostly  pure  Malays,  on  board  their  large  fleet  of /;'«^M-cruisers  ; 
though  there  are  many  Chinese  and  Arabs  among  the  freighters.  The  Malayan 
prahu  was  originally  a  somewhat  shallow  boat  with  one  sail,  and  having  a  keel. 
The  most  renowned  shipbuilders  are  the  Ke  islanders,  whose  boats,  built  of 
wood  fastened  with  wooden  bolts  and  rattan,  sail  through  the  whole  New  Guinea 
Archipelago  to  Singapore  ;  and  next  to  them  the  Badjos  and  Bugises  of  South 
Celebes,  and  the  Malays  of  Billiton,  Palembang,  and  Acheen.  The  Malagasies 
must  have  lost  much  of  the  art  of  shipbuilding,  though  they  once  suffered  it  to 
reach  their  island.  Their  usual  boat  is  a  "  dug-out "  with  round  bottom  and  no 
keel,  provided  with  outriggers  when  at  sea — the  Hova  boats  have  no  outriggers — 
carrying  large  square  or  lateen  sails  made  of  mats  of  palm-straw,  or  of  cloth. 
In  another  kind  of  boat  the  floor  consists  of  one  hewn  tree-stem,  upon  which  the 
slim  craft,  most  elegant  in  form,  is  built  up  with  strakes  hardly  more  than  an 
inch  wide.  The  sharp  beak  runs  out  in  a  kind  of  neck,  raised  high,  and  adorned 
with  peculiar  carvings  ;  while  the  vessel  tapers  aft  to  a  narrow  stern,  also  elevated 
and  similarly  ornamented.  These  boats  also  have  outriggers,  are  20  to  30  feet 
long,  and  hardly  3  feet  wide. 

Their  active  sea-trafiic  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  features  in  the  life  of 
the  Malays.  It  is  no  mere  coasting-trade  that  is  carried  on  by  some  expert 
navigators  among  the  races  of  the  Archipelago,  notably  the  true  Malays  of 
Sumatra  and  the  Malay  Peninsula,  and  the  colonists  from  thence  in  Borneo 
and  other  islands.  They  are  not  afraid  of  competition  with  the  Chinese,  whom 
they  have  obviously  taken  for  their  model,  formidable  as  these  are  in  trade  ; 
they  act  mostly  as  clever  middlemen  to  them,  pushing  into  the  interior  of  the 
islands,  where  they  are  preferred  by  the  native  authorities,  and  also  reaching 
farther  eastward  than  the  Chinese.  They  make  use,  moreover,  of  European 
communications.  Piracy  has  never  succeeded  in  paralysing  this  native  traffic, 
whichr  indeed  has  known  how  to  come  to  terms  with  it ;  nor,  although  not  a  year 
passes  without  some  prahu  from  Goram  being  fallen  upon  by  the  inhospitable 
Papuans  of  New  Guinea,  does  this  injure  it  either,  any  more  than  it  hinders  the 
people  of  Tidor  from  visiting  those  coasts,  abounding  in  slaves  and  trepang,  with 
whole  fleets.  Entire  populations  have  been,  as  it  were,  rendered  fluid  by  means 
of  trade — above  all  the  Malays  of  Sumatran  origin,  proverbially  clever,  keen, 
omnipresent ;  and  the  equally  smart  but  treacherous  Bugises  of  Celebes,  who  are 


172  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


to  be  found  in  every  spot  from  Singapore  to  New  Guinea,  and  have  recently 
immigrated  in  large  numbers  into  Borneo  at  the  instance  of  local  chiefs,  bo 
great  is  their  influence  that  they  are  allowed  to  govern  themselves  according  to 
their  own  laws  ;  and  they  are  so  conscious  of  their  own  strength  that  there  has 
been  no  lack  of  attempts  to  make  themselves  independent.  The  Acheenese  once 
held  a  similar  position.  After  the  decline  of  Malacca,  which  the  Sumatran 
Malays  had  made  an  emporium,  there  were,  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  several  decades  during  the  turning  period  of  the  world's  history  when 
Acheen  was  the  busiest  roadstead  of  the  far  east. 

All  things  being  taken  together,  the  capabilities  of  the  Malayo-Polynesians 
as  navigators  are  pre-eminent.  It  is  only  because  this  estimate  of  them  has  not 
always  been  taken  that  their  distribution  assumed  the  look  of  a  riddle,  though  in 
fact  it  was  no  riddle  whatsoever. 

With  the  dispersion  of  the  Polynesian  races  over  the  islands  of  the  ocean, 
first  through  storms  and  currents,  then  by  voluntary  migration,  was  associated  in 
later  times  the  traffic  in  men,  called  into  existence  by  the  growing  demand  for 
labour  in  regions  of  economic  progress,  like  Hawaii,  Samoa,  or  Queensland.  In 
its  beginnings  it  was  indistinguishable  from  kidnapping.  Men  and  boys  were 
dragged  from  their  homes  by  force,  or  decoyed  by  false  representations,  and 
carried  to  districts  where  they  had  never  wanted  to  be.  The  regulations  framed 
later  by  various  governments  remained  for  the  most  part  ineffective  for  want  of 
officials  to  look  after  them.  Even  when  the  planters  were  compelled  to  send 
their  Kanakas  back  at  the  end  of  three  years,  captains  often  landed  them,  for 
their  own  convenience,  on  some  island  where  the  poor  creatures  had  never  lived, 
and  where  they  were  ill-treated  and  often  killed  by  the  inhabitants.  Since  the 
arrival  of  Europeans,  too,  the  decrease  of  the  population  has  caused  shiftings  in 
most  islands.  Immigrants  from  a  wide  area,  extending  from  New  Zealand  to 
the  Marquesas,  have  come  to  Hawaii.  On  the  other  hand  Hawaii  is  one  of  the 
groups  whence  native  missionaries  have  propagated'  Christianity  far  into  the 
Melanesian  region. 

In  the  world  of  Polynesian  mythology  and  legend  we  constantly  come  across 
migrations  undertaken  from  the  most  various  motives.  Everything  important  or 
peculiar  has  been  brought  over  sea  ;  the  wide  horizon  of  the  ocean,  no  less  than 
the  narrow  one  of  the  island-world,  gleams  with  a  divine  light  upon  these 
migration-legends  ;  remoter  islands  are  half-way  stations  between  this  world  and 
the  next.  To  quote  Bastian  :  "  Once  upon  a  time,  after  a  long  voyage,  a  ship  was 
cast  away  upon  a  strange  coast.  It  looked  very  strange  to  the  new-comers, 
offering  the  appearance  of  an  uncanny  spectre-land  :  for  they  walked  through 
trees  and  houses  without  feeling  them.  A  figure  met  them  and  told  them  that 
they  were  in  the  realm  of  spirits.  They  followed  his  injunction  to  return  home  at 
once,  and  were  driven  along  quickly  by  a  favouring  wind.  But  they  had  only 
time  to  relate  how  they  had  gone  astray  before  they  departed  this  life.  'Since 
then  that  deadly  coast  has  been  avoided."  On  Raiatea  it  was  told  of  Tangaroa 
that  after  peopling  the  world  he  changed  himself  into  a  canoe,  which,  after 
bringing  men  along,  and  preparing  the  red  of  the  sky  from  their  blood,  furnished 
the  model  for  the  temple.  Assistance  in  the  erection  of  the  islands  was  rendered 
by  casual  comers,  which  would  give  them  an  additional  ground  for  a  title  to  it. 
When  Savage   Island  was  raised  out   of  the  sea,  two   men  who   swam   over  from 


THE  RACES   OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND    THEIR  MIGRATIONS  173 

Tonga  put  it  in  order  ;  and  the  steepness  of  its  coast  on  one  side  is  ascribed  to 
the  carelessness  of  the  one  who  worked  there.  Others  think  that  these  helpers 
stamped  the  islands  out  of  the  sea.  The  Hawaiian  account  is  simpler  :  When 
Hawaii  had  been  hatched  from  the  sea-bird's  egg,  some  people  came  from  Tahiti, 
a  man  and  his  wife,  with  a  dog,  a  pig,  and  a  hen  in  their  canoe.  Ulu  introduced 
the  bread-fruit  which  is  named  after  him,  and  his  brother  the  cloth  made  from  the 
bast  of  the  mulberry  tree.  The  gods,  who  were  originally  the  sole  inhabitants 
of  these  islands,  were  approached  to  obtain  leave  to  settle.  The  mother-country, 
"  Hawaiki,"  soon  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  land  of  the  other  world — a  spirit-land  ; 
what  descended  from  it  was  hallowed.  Tamatekapua,  the  son  of  the  Clouds, 
brought  Rongomai  to  New  Zealand  as  its  tutelary  god  from  the  spirit-land  ;  and 
there,  too,  was  preserved  the  stone  idol  brought  from  Hawaiki,  Matua-Tonga,  the 
son  of  the  south,  as  the  Kumaras'  god.  If  we  find  tradition  bringing  white 
priests  and  their  gods  to  Hawaii,  we  are  led  to  see  other  relations,  namely  with 
the  west,  the  direction  of  them  being  indicated  by  the  casting  away  on  these 
shores  of  people  from  Eastern  Asia. 

Traditions  are  not  kept  alive  by  memory  only.  Political  and  social  relations 
follow  to  this  day  the  lines  of  old  connections  which  link  together  island  groups 
far  distant  from  each  other.  Legends  of  migration  survive  in  individual  villages 
and  families,  where  the  old  home  is  still  remembered,  and  the  connection  with  it 
often  bound  closer  by  special  reverence.  The  Tongans  were  long  in  the  habit 
of  respectfully  greeting  the  people  of  Tokelau,  as  being  their  ancestors.  Men 
from  Ulie  in  the  Carolines,  who  visited  the  island  of  Guam  in  the  Mariannes  in 
1788,  followed  the  roads  from  old  descriptions  preserved  in  songs  ;  since  then  the 
intercourse  has  become  brisker,  and  at  the  present  day  the  Caroline  islanders 
collect  coco-nuts  in  the  Mariannes  on  behalf  of  foreign  traders.  Political 
connection,  again,  is  often  bound  up  with  objects  that  have  been  either  left  behind 
or  brought  along.  The  Uluthi  Islands  are  subject  to  Yap,  because  a  great 
destruction,  by  means  of  an  inundation  of  the  sea,  would  take  place  if  an  axe 
belonging  to  one  of  the  gods,  which  is  buried  in  the  latter  island,  were  to  be  dug 
up.  When  these  lines  of  attraction  or  attachment  intersect,  quarrels  cannot  be 
far  off.  Thus  the  Samoans  relate  that  one  of  their  chiefs  fished  up  Rotuma  and 
planted  coco-palm  on  it.  But  in  a  later  migration  the  chief  Tukunua  came  that 
way  with  a  canoe  full  of  men  and  quarrelled  with  him  about  the  prior  right  of 
possession.  The  Maoris  found  another  ground  for  quarrelling :  having  come 
from  little  islands  where  land  was  scarce,  every  man  laid  claim  to  estates  in  New 
Zealand  that  were  too  large. 

The  scantiness  of  migration  legends  in  Melanesia  has  been  regarded  as  only 
a  part  of  the  general  dearth  of  tradition  which  is  a  Melanesian  characteristic. 
Fiji  offers  us  unwonted  examples  of  legends  of  inland  migrations,  directed  from 
the  north-west  towards  the  south-east,  which  in  still  later  times  was  uninhabited. 
No  doubt  this  bears  upon  the  fact  that  the  home  of  souls  lies  across  the  sea,  and 
that  all  the  spots  whence  souls  go,  that  is  swim,  to  the  next  world,  face  north-west. 

If,  out  of  all  these  innumerable  wanderings  to  and  fro  to  which  various  causes 
have  given  rise,  one  group  stands  out  by  reason  of  the  great  extent  of  its 
ethnographic  operation — that,  namely,  which  has  occupied  the  region  between 
New  Zealand  and  Hawaii,  Fiji  and  Easter  Island,  with  a  strikingly  homogeneous 
population — that  is  but  part  of  the  result  of  the  great  migratory  movement  in 


174  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKLXD 


the  Pacific.  It  is  quite  wrong  to  regard  this  as  a  single  event,  or  as  an  exception. 
It  is  rather  one  case  of  the  rule  ;  for  none  of  these  races  was  ever  at  rest.  They 
wandered  far  and  near,  colonising  consciously  and  intentionally,  like  any 
Greeks  or  Phoenicians.  In  any  case  this  last  series  of  great  migrations  and 
settlements  is  a  single  existing  fact  belonging  to  that  stage  in  the  development  of 
culture  which  we  call  the  stone  age.  For  that  reason  it  is  not  easy  to  understand ; 
we  have  no  means  of  comparison  with  similar  achievements.  The  area  which  this 
colonising  activity  has  rendered  productive  far  exceeds  the  empire  of  Alexander 
or  of  Rome.  In  the  domain  of  annexation  it  was  the  greatest  performance 
previous  to  the  discovery  of  America. 

It  was  with  astonishment  that  the  close  connection  of  the  languages  of 
Oceania  was  first  recognised.  Just  as  little  could  the  general  ethnographical 
similarity  be  overlooked  ;  the  only  difficulty  was  to  find  therein  a  scale  of  affinity, 
still  more  of  remoteness,  in  point  of  time.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  from 
New  Guinea  to  Easter  Island  we  are  in  presence  of  essentially  one  civilization. 
A  special  branch  of  it  has  developed  in  the  narrower  region  of  Polynesia.  The 
elements  of  this  civilization  are  distributed  over  the  islands  with  little  uniformity. 
We  cannot  ignore  the  possibility  that  closer  affinities  are  indicated .  by  .  the 
distribution  of  particular  articles,  but  hitherto  the  right  way  to  identify  them  has 
hardly  been  taken,  least  of  all  by  those  who  imagine  they  see  in  New.  Zealand  the 
point  whence  Polynesian  migrations  had  set  out.  For  the  distribution  of  certain 
weapons  upon  which  this  hypothesis  rests  in  the  first  instance  is  everywhere  so 
uneven  and  capricious  that  conclusions  of  very  wide  import  cannot  be  based  upon 
it.  That  the  home  of  the  Maui  myth  appears  to  be  in  New  Zealand  ;  that  the 
title  Ariki  is  here  applied  to  priests,  but  in  the  rest  of  Polynesia  to  temporal 
chiefs  ;  and  that  New  Zealand  alone  can  be  the  home  of  the  articles  made  of 
jade  which  are  scattered  throughout  Polynesia,  none  of  these  are  facts  from  which 
we  can  draw  the  important  conclusion  that  New  Zealand  was  the  point  of 
dispersion. 

It  is  solely  upon  the  basis  of  the  traditions  that  the  view  of  the  great  majority 
of  students  is  at  present  to  the  effect  that  not  only  the  New  Zealanders  but  also 
other  Polynesians  migrated  to  their  present  abodes  from  some  southerly  point  in 
equatorial  Polynesia.  The  Maori  tradition  is  that  they  came  to  their  island  from 
a  place  called  Hawaiki ;  they  seem  to  distinguish  a  larger  and  smaller,  or  a  nearer 
and  further  Hawaiki.  "  The  seed  of  our  coming  is  from  Hawaiki,  the  seed  of  our 
nourishing,  the  seed  of  mankind."  This  name,  Hawaiki,  is  cognate  with  a  whole 
number  of  Polynesian  place  names :  Savaii  in  the  Samoa  group,  Hawaii  in  the 
group  of  that  name,  Apai  in  the  Tonga  Islands,  Evava  in  the  Marquesas  and 
others.  Savaii,  one  of  the  Samoa  or  Navigator  Islands,  has  the  greatest  pro- 
bability on  its  side.  As  Hawaii  it  forms  also  the  starting-point  for  emigration  to 
Raiatea  and  Tahiti,  while  the  legends  of  the  Marquesas  and  Hawaii  refer  back  to 
Tahiti.  There  is  a  song  in  which  Rarotonga,  Waerota,  Waeroti,  Parima,  and 
Manono  are  mentioned  as  neighbouring  islands  to  Tahiti.  The  Rarotongans 
themselves  have  the  tradition  that  they  come  from  Awaiki.  Waerota  and 
Waeroti  are  now  unknown,  but  Parima  and  Manono  are  small  islets  of  the  Samoan 
group,  the  inhabitants  of  which  say  they  came  from  Savaii.  Wild  dogs  like  those 
of  New  Zealand,  the  same  kind  of  rats,  the  sweet  potato,  the  taro,  the  same  kind 
of  gourd,  are  found  in  the  Navigator  Islands.      Maori  traditions  again   which  call 


THE  RACES   OF   THE  PACIFIC  AND    THEIR  MIGRATIONS  175 


Rarotonga  the  way  to  Hawaiki,  and  say  that  some  of  the  New  Zealand  boats  were 
built  in  Rarotonga,  are  equally  in  favour  of  the  journey  having  been  made  first 
from  the  somewhat  mythical  Hawaiki  to  that  island  which  no  doubt  is  the 
"  nearer  Hawaiki "  of  tradition.  It  is  possible  that  the  larger  part  of  the  Maoris 
are  of  Rarotongan  origin. 

The  songs  of  the  New  Zealanders  tell  us  even  now  the  reason  for  their 
emigration  and  their  farther  wandering.  A  chief  by  the  name  of  Ngahue  was 
driven  to  flight  by  a  civil  war  which  devastated  Hawaiki.  After  a  long  journey 
he  reached  New  Zealand  and  returned  to  Hawaiki  with  pieces  of  greenstone  and 
the  bones  of  a  giant-bird.  Other  legends  give  him  the  name  Kup6 — the  weaker 
party  in  the  war  that  was  still  going  on  among  the  islanders  tnigrated  to  New 
Zealand  with  him.  The  tradition  still  preserves  the  names  of  the  double  canoes 
in  which  the  voyage  was  accomplished.  The  legend  still  recalls  how  the  seeds  of 
sweet  potatoes,  taro,  gourds,  karaka  berries,  dogs,  parrots,  and  rats,  and  sacred 


Carved  boat  from  New  Zealand  ;  actual  length  8  ft.  s  in.     (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology. ) 

red  paint  were  put  on  board  the  canoes,  and  how,  as  the  emigrant's  fleet  departed, 
an  old  chief  exhorted  to  peace.  Nor  is  the  storm  forgotten  which  got  up  in  the 
night  and  scattered  the  fleet,  nor  the  doubt  whether  they  should  steer  east  or 
west,  nor  the  little  quarrels  which  arose  among  the  crews  of  individual  canoes 
chiefly  on  account  of  the  women.  The  canoes  were  repaired  on  islands  as  they 
went  along.  Finally,  what  was  left  of  the  wanderers  reached  New  Zealand  in 
the  summer  time,  and  even  before  the  chiefs  had  decided  on  the  place  to  land, 
certain  families  landed  where  pleasant  bays  smiled  upon  them,  all  in  the  North 
Island.  It  was  not  till  later  that  the  Middle  and  South  Islands  received  their 
population.  Even  to  this  day  the  north  is  called  the  Lower  and  the  south  the 
Upper  Island.  The  various  tribal  groups  trace  their  origin  to  their  canoes,  the 
names  of  which  they  have  preserved,  and  equally  the  names  of  the  chiefs  and 
the  exact  spot  where  the  canoe  landed.  One  canoe  sailed  round  the  North  Cape, 
another  made  its  way  through  Cook's  Straits  ;  these  two  brought  the  first  settlers 
to  the  west  coast.  Wharekauri  or  Chatham  Island,  some  sixty  nautical  miles 
distant  from  New  Zealand,  must  have  been  peopled  at  the  same  time. 

A  second  starting-point  is  indicated  by  tradition  in  the  Tonga  or  Friendly 
Islands.  The  inhabitants  of  Nukahiva  in  the  Marquesas  make  their  forefathers 
come  with  bread-fruit  and  sugar-cane  from  Vavau  in  the  Tonga  Archipelago. 
But  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  southern  part  of  that  archipelago  the  Hawaiki 
legend  appears  again,  although  language  and  customs  rather  point  to  Tahiti.  In 
this  connection  we  may  remember  that  in  Raiatea  also  there  was  once  a  locality 


176 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


(i)  God  of  dances  in  the  form  of  a  double  paddle,  Easter  Island;  (2) 
toothed  club  from  Tutuila  ;  (3)  ancient  club  from  Tonga  ;  (4,  5)  short 
clubs  from  Easter  Island.      {Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology.) 


designated  Hawaii.  The 
Hawaii  or  Sandwich' 
Islands  offer  the  same 
difficulty.  Language  and 
customs  connect  their 
inhabitants  with  Tahiti 
to  which,  as  also  to  the 
Marquesas,  Hawaiian 
travel  myths  point.  On 
the  other  hand,  place 
names  show  a  lively  re- 
collection of  the  Samoa 
group.  Tahiti  seems  to 
have  sent  forth  emigrants 
to  Hawaii,  Nukahiva, 
Rarotonga  ;  yet  the  ex- 
plicit tradition  of  the 
Rarotongans  makes  their 
island  to  have  been 
settled  almost  simultan- 
eously from  Samoa  and 
Tahiti.  But  then  from 
Rarotonga  again  came 
the  colonists  for  the 
Gambler  and  Austral 
Islands,  with  Rapa,  and 
also  a  part  of  those  who 
made  the  great  journey 
to  New  Zealand. 

We  feel  some  scruple 
about  making  the  name 
Hawaiki  indicate  one 
single  island  of  a  small 
archipelago.  Strearns  of 
emigration  are  supposed 
to  have  poured  forth 
from  it,  at  the  most  vari- 
ous epochs,  to  Hawaii  as 
well  as  to  New  Zealand, 
to  Tahiti  no  less  than 
to  Tonga.  Why  just 
that  one  and  that  only? 
No  doubt  the  name  pos- 
sesses a  general,  and  like 
other  place  -  names,  a 
mythical  significance, 
wherewith  many  of  the 
attributes  of  the  legend 


THE  RACES  OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND    THEIR  MIGRATIONS 


177 


can  more  easily  be  combined  than  with  that  somewhat  forced  geographical  inter- 
pretation. We  are  from  the  first  warned  to  be  cautious  by  the  fact  that  this 
legend  of  Hawaiki  is  one  of  the  few  legends  related  by  a  race  about  its  own 
origin,  which  science  has  nevertheless  thoroughly  accepted.  At  all  tiipes  we 
are  strongly  averse  to  such  traditions,  since  they  are  never  free  from  mythical 
elements.  The  geographical  position  of  Hawaiki  is  not  absolutely  certain  in  all 
traditions ;  but  rather  shows  a 
considerable  fluctuation.  It  even 
turns  up  as  a  spirit  land,  as  the 
land  of  the  West,  where  the  souls 
go  with  the  sun  into  the  under 
world,  as  the  land  of  souls,  and 
so  as  the  land  of  forefathers,  the 
ancestral  land.  We  can  now 
understand  the  belief  of  the 
Marquesans  that  their  entire 
country  once  lay  in  this  Hawaiki, 
and  came  up  from  it.  Simi- 
larly it  is  the  land  where  man- 
kind once  lost  their  immortality, 
and  from  spirits  became  men. 
Numerous  place  -  names  show 
that  a  name  may  recur  widely 
without  actual  transmission. 
Lastly,  the  fluctuations  in  in- 
dividual traditions  must  not  be 
overlooked.  If  a  Tahitian  ori- 
gin is  universally  assumed  by 
the  Hawaiians,  traditions  also 
point  to  the  Marquesas  and 
Samoa,  and  from  the  Marquesas 
the  threads  lead  back  to  Tahiti, 
Samoa,  and  even  Tonga.  The 
old  Hawaiians  seem  by  "  Tahiti  " 
to  have  understood  strangers  in 
general.  The  Maori  ^  legends 
also  testify  that  not  one  immigration  only,  but  several,  took  place  from  the  north- 
ward. A  much  later  arrival  is  emphasised  in  all  the  legends.  We  know  therefore 
why  those  wanderers  are  alleged  to  have  found  in  these  islands  aboriginal  inhabitants, 
of  whom  the  geological  record  of  New  Zealand,  and  its  fossils,  have  so  far  revealed 
no  trace.  At  any  rate,  the  fact,  still  contested,  that  the  dog  occurs  not  as  the 
companion  of  man,  but  as  a  beast  of  prey,  points  to  another  civilization  than  that 
which  met  the  first  Europeans  who  visited  the  Maoris.  The  legend  of  the 
various  immigrations  also  takes  various  forms.  In  New  Zealand  the  new  comers 
find  footmarks,  which  they  recognise  as  those  of  one  of  their  companions  who  had 
been  thrown  out  of  his  boat.      One  legend  speaks  of  fair  natives,  and  of  the  rise 

^  Maori  "native  "  in  opposition  to  Pakeha  " stranger  "  occurs  in  the  same  sense  in  other  parts  of  Polynesia, 
in  the  forms  Maoi  and  Maoli, 

N 


Thakombau,  the  last  king  of  Fiji.     (From  a  photograph  in  the 
possession  of  Herr  Max  Buchner. ) 


1/8  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


of  a  darker  stock  through  mixture  with  older  inhabitants  ;  Hkewise  of  men  who 
lived  on  these  islands  "  after  the  great  monster,"  and  who  left  great  shell  heaps 
behind  them.  We  reach  quite  mythical  ground  with  the  Pua-Reingas,  who  lived 
underground  and  could  not  be  conquered  till  a  chief  made  a  hole  in  the  earth 
by  which  the  sunbeams  entered.  Less  frequently,  for  instance  in  Rarotonga, 
Mangarewa,  the  Kingsmill  or  Austral  groups,  the  legend  is  decided  as  to  their 
being  uninhabited. 

The  epochs  of  the  Polynesian  migrations  must  have  been  very  various.  They 
took  place  so  long  as  there  were  any  Polynesians  in  the  Pacific.  In  the  case  of 
the  colonisation  of  Rarotonga,  tradition  demands  thirty  generations,  in  that  of  the 
Maoris  fifteen  to  twenty.  On  Nukahiva  indeed  we  hear  of  eighty-eight  generations ; 
and  there  are  sixty-seven  ancestors  of  Kamehameha  ;  but  to  these  figures  no  credit 
can  be  given.  We  are  entitled,  however,  to  assign  no  great  antiquity  to  Polynesian 
colonisation.  The  people  have  not  had  time  to  develop  any  marked  peculiarities 
in  culture.  The  date  of  their  arrival  in  New  Zealand  and  the  other  places  of 
immigration  can  only  be  a  matter  of  some  centuries  back.  The  settlement  of 
Tahiti  no  doubt  falls  earlier.  Many  isolated  casual  migrations  may  have  preceded 
the  greater  deliberate  movements.  But  in  any  case  we  must  clearly  grasp  the 
fact  that  there  was  a  period  during  which  the  sending  forth  of  colonies  was 
enjoined  by  the  increase  in  population,  and  was  rendered  possible  by  the  political 
organisation.  In  the  newly  occupied  territories  too,  the  development  of  the  new 
populations  began  upon  a  higher  level,  and  then  fell  off ;  upon  the  remoter 
islands  like  New  Zealand,  Hawaii,  Easter  Island,  where  disturbing  influence  pressed 
upon  them  less,  they  retained  the  most  traces  of  a  past  higher  condition.  The 
decadence  of  the  Maoris  affords  a  conspicuous  instance  of  a  rapid  impoverishment 
in  the  advantages  of  culture.  The  larger  states  split  up  into  small  communities, 
on  a  mutual  footing  of  feud  and  extermination,  having  lost  the  consciousness  of 
a  stronger  cohesion,  with  its  power  to  maintain  culture.  The  character  of  the 
people  lost  in  demeanour  and  discipline,  becoming  ever  more  savage  and  cruel. 
Hand  in  hand  with  this  went  belief  in  their  old  native  gods,  and  the  transforma- 
tion of  these  into  demons  of  the  forest  and  the  sea,  cruel  spectral  caricatures, 
distorted  at  pleasure.  A  superstitious  cult  of  the  individual  took  the  place  of  the 
state  or  national  religion.  They  went  back  even  in  the  arts  ;  even  in  Cook's  time 
works  of  former  generations  were  preserved  as  sacred  objects,  which  they  had  lost 
the  knowledge  and  the  capacity  to  produce. 

These  migrations  were  not  confined  within  the  limits  of  Polynesia.  Colonies 
went  forth  into  all  the  Melanesian  groups  ;  where  we  obtain  a  general  impression 
of  a  permeation  with  Polynesian  elements  from  the  eastward.  On  the  small 
islands  they  hold  their  ground  ;  on  the  larger  they  were  merged  in  the  mass  of 
the  resident  population,  but  not  without  leaving  their  traces.  Ethnographical 
varieties  become  clear,  if  we  remember  that  one  or  the  other  element  has  been  the 
bearer  of  them.  Thus  in  the  territory  of  the  New  Hebrides  and  Solomon  Islands, 
where  "  mother -right "  prevails,  Polynesian  colonists  have  brought  in  "  father- 
right  "  ;  in  this  case  a  revolutionary  institution.  Echoes  of  New  Zealand  meet 
us  in  the  visible  speech  of  New  Caledonian  architecture,  in  the  clubs  of  Eastern 
New  Guinea,  and  in  other  cases.  In  Micronesia,  Polynesian  affinities  are  yet 
more  frequent.  There  many  customs  remind  us  with  especial  force  of  the  western 
Polynesians   and   at   the   same    time    of  the    Fijians.      Not    only,   however,   have 


THE  RACES  OF   THE  PACIFIC  AND    THEIR  MIGRATIONS  179 

Polynesians    made    their    way   to    Melanesia,   but   we    have    historical    proof   of 
Melanesian  colonies  in  Polynesia. 

Nothing  indicates  more  clearly  the  frequency  and  extent  of  these  migrations 
than  the  very  small  number  of  totally  uninhabited  islands.  These  vikings  of  the 
Pacific  contrived  to  discover  even  small  and  remote  islets.  In  the  whole  of  the 
Pacific  there  is  not  one  island  of  any  size  of  which  it  was  left  to  Europeans  to 
demonstrate  the  habitability.  Many  of  them  were  only  visited  periodically  for 
their  palms  or  the  fishing ;  but  these  were  in  all  cases  certain  to  be  less  well  suited 
than  the  others  for  habitation.  Of  the  little  islets  which  rise  from  a  common  base 
in  a  reef,  and  lie  almost  flush  with  the  sea,  forming  an  atoll,  often  only  one  in  a 
group,  the  largest  or  most  productive,  is  inhabited.  Indubitable  traces  of  former 
habitation  show  that  the  uninhabited  regions  did  not  extend  beyond  their  present 
boundaries.  These  are  proved  to  lie  in  those  central  Pacific  Sporades  which  hold 
so  important  a  place  between  the  groups  of  Eastern  Polynesia  and  Hawaii,  such 
as  the  Guano  Islands  of  the  Central  Pacific,  the  Penrhyn  group,  the  most  south- 
easterly islets  of  the  Paumotu  group,  and  others.  Norfolk  Island  is  the  only  one 
in  the  Southern  Pacific  which  can  be  pointed  out  as  having  from  its  natural 
conditions  and  endowments  deserved  to  be  permanently  settled  ;  but  in  the  angle 
it  makes  with  Australia  and  Polynesia,  it  lies  far  from  all  migrations,  and  it  has 
an  area  of  not  more  than  1 8  square  miles. 

Local  arrangement  breaks  up  the  wide  district  into  geographical  groups 
distinguished  by  ethnographic  characteristics  :  Melanesia  is  contiguous  to  New 
Guinea  ;  north  of  it,  separated  by  a  band  poor  in  islands,  we  find  Micronesia  over 
against  the  Moluccas  and  Philippines  to  the  eastward.  Polynesia  joins  on  in  the 
form  of  a  great  triangular  space  outflanking  the  eastern  side  of  the  two  districts 
already  named  both  to  south  and  to  north,  and  is  divided  by  a  tract  of  sea  with 
few  islands  into  a  western  group  of  Tonga,  Samoa,  and  Tokelau  with  Fiji,  and 
a  more  extended  eastern  group  reaching  from  Hawaii  to  New  Zealand.^ 

In  view  of  the  many  internal  differences  in  the  populations,  and  considering 
the  distinction,  great  but  difficult,  of  accurate  demarcation  between  Polynesians  and 
Melanesians,  there  is  little  purpose  in  dividing  off  smaller  groups  by  physical 
characteristics.  These  can  at  most  be  suggested.  It  is  just  possible  that  a  sharper 
racial  distinction  between  west  and  east  Polynesians  may  be  emphasised. 
According  to  Finsch,  among  all  the  Polynesians  the  Hawaiians  have  the  greatest 
similarity  with  the  Samoans.  The  Maoris  are  next  most  closely  connected  ;  this 
nearer  relationship  is  confirmed  by  the  language.  This  seems  to  be  a  similar 
phenomenon  to  that  of  the  deepening  of  the  lighter  skin  tint  of  the  Malays  into 
a  darker  as  we  go  eastward.  Confining  ourselves  to  tangible  objects,  we  will  now 
make  an  attempt  to  divide  the  area  of  Polynesian  culture  into  smaller  districts. 
In  this,  as  might  be  expected,  the  large  influential  groups  of  Samoa  and  Tonga 
show  an  affinity  with  the  neighbouring  Fiji.  This  strikes  us  most  clearly  in  our 
ethnographical  museums  by  the  abundance  and  variety  of  the  wonderfully  carved 
clubs.  Tonga  shows  linguistic  peculiarities,  shares  with  Fiji  in  respect  of  bows 
and  pottery,  and  builds  its  vessels  differently  from  Samoa.  In  the  Harvey  Islands 
to  the  eastward,  the  art  of  carving  has  been  absorbed  in  the  preparation  of 
hatchets  with  pretty  handles  rich  in  symbolic  forms.     The  Society   Isles  show 

'  [I  leave  this  as  in  the  original,  though  it  appears  from  the  map  that  a  line  drawn  from  Hawaii  to  New 
Zealand  passes  through  the  Tonga  group.] 


i8o  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


agreement  with  Hawaii  in  their  feather  work  and  axes.  In  the  Marquesas,  oars 
as  well  as  axes  and  dancing  stilts  are  carved  with  conventional  ornaments,  each 
of  which  has  its  name  and  its  significance,  reminding  us  somewhat  of  the  Easter 
Islanders'  writing.  The  Hawaii  or  Sandwich  Islands  are  distinguished  by  fine 
feather  masks  and  helmets,  and  have  weapons  with  wooden  handles,  set  with 
sharks'  teeth  like  knives.  These,  however,  find  their  richest  development  in  the 
Gilbert  or  Kingsmill  Island.  New  Zealand,  which  has  the  most  peculiar  climate 
of  any  region  inhabited  by  Polynesians,  is  the  culminating  point  and  the  horn  of 
plenty  in  regard  to  art  development  in  Oceania.  Its  favourite  manufacture  is  small 
hand  clubs,  called  mere,  made  like  many  ornamental  objects  from  jade.  Also 
richly  carved  sticks,  objects  in  greenstone,  symbols  of  rank  in  the  shape  of  oars, 
ships,  pillars  for  houses.  But  on  the  whole  it  preserves  agreement  with  the  rest 
of  Polynesia.  One  might  conclude  that  its  settlement  did  not  take  place  till  late, 
but  that  from  the  remoteness  of  these  islands  a  tranquil  development  resulted 
with  the  maintenance  of  many  old  notions  of  form.  If  the  Maori  dialect  is  in 
many  respects  richer  and  more  primitive  than  other  Polynesian  dialects,  this  may 
be  ascribed  to  the  more  plentiful  contact  of  the  tribes  over  wider  spaces.  The 
most  unique  existence  is  that  of  Easter  Island.  It  represents  among  the  islands 
what  the  naturalist  would  call  a  "  sport."  No  part  of  the  earth  shows  the  power 
of  isolation  with  more  impressive  clearness  than  this  little  spot  of  some  50  square 
miles.  The  most  trustworthy  descriptions  draw  attention  to  the  departure  of  the 
Easter  Islanders  from  the  pure  Polynesian  type.  Darker  coloured  skin  and  small 
eyes  point  perhaps  to  an  admixture  of  Melanesian  blood.  In  a  population  which 
by  the  highest  estimate  reached  3000,  and  before  the  days  of  small-pox  and 
kidnapping  were  reckoned  by  the  first  French  missionary  at  not  more  than  1500, 
even  small  admixtures  would  be  of  importance.  But  these  peculiarities,  not  very 
significant  under  any  circumstances,  disappear  when  we  look  at  the  special  ethno- 
graphical points,  positive  as  well  as  negative.  Above  all  other  Polynesians  the 
Easter  Islanders  possess  the  art  of  pottery  ;  also  an  obsolete  writing,  the  power  of 
executing  human  figures  in  wood-carving,  and  of  making  gigantic  stone  images  ; 
they  also  build  stone  huts.  But  on  the  other  hand  they  have  not  the  more  artistic 
forms  of  axe,  bow,  and  spear.  " 

Locally  and  ethnographically  the  Micronesians  stand  next  to  the  Malay 
Archipelago  and  East  Asia  ;  from  a  physical  point  of  view  they  display  many  of 
the  Mongoloid  marks  with  especial  clearness.  In  their  ethnographic  relations 
they  seem  to  be  a  race  which  has  come  down  from  a  higher  stage.  In  social  and 
political  institutions — in  their  money,  their  looms,  their  navigation — they  show 
traces  of  a  richer  development  of  the  external  life.  But  a  further  motive  must  be 
sought  in  the  less  secluded  character  of  the  entire  Micronesian  development,  upon 
which  the  neighbourhood  of  Asia  has  worked  both  advantageously  and  disturbingly. 
Many  objects  are  indistinguishably  like  those  of  particular  Malayan  localities ; 
thus  the  spears  of  the  Carolines  resemble  those  of  central  Celebes.  Polynesian 
influences  predominate  especially  in  the  Gilbert  Islands  ;  tattooing  instruments 
agree  exactly.  The  agreements  between  Melanesia  and  Micronesia  lie  in  a  mass 
of  small  details  ;  the  young  people  of  Astrolabe  Bay  wear,  besides  the  comb  in 
their  hair,  little  sticks  bound  with  grass  and  adorned  with  cock's  feathers,  repeating 
the  curious  head  ornament  of  the  Ruk  Islanders.  The  loom  of  Santa  Cruz,  unique 
in  the  Melanesian  region,  is  closely  akin  to  that  of  the  Carolines. 


THE  RACES   OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND   THEIR  MIGRATIONS 


Within  the  region  of  the  darker  races  the  contrasts  are  naturally  sharper.  In 
every  archipelago,  and  in  New  Guinea,  lighter  and  darker  groups  may  be 
distinguished.  The  Papuas  of  New  Guinea  west  of  Humboldt  Bay,  are  on  the 
average  darker  than  those  to  the  eastward  ;  in  the  western  portion  we  no  longer 
meet  with  light  -  skinned,  straight  -  haired  people,  who  might  be  taken  for 
Polynesians.  Ethno- 
graphical character- 
istics point  partly  to 
the  more  easterly 
islands  of  the  Sunda 
group ;  the  short  bows 
of  bamboo  strung  with 
fibres,  or  the  stone 
clubs  and  the  armour. 
Of  smaller,  quite  spe- 
cial characteristics,  we 
may  note  the  arrows, 
exactly  like  those  of 
Ceram.  The  more 
warlike  and  enterpris- 
ing tribes  dwell  in 
East  New  Guinea ; 
they  are  far  superior 
to  the  natives  of  the 
interior,  the  stupid 
Dorese,  and  the  good- 
tempered,  cunning 
Papuas  of  the  south- 
west coast.  This 
character  extends  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the 
neighbouring  islands 
to  east  and  north. 
Between  the  Bis- 
marck and  Solomon 
Islanders,  too,  there  is 
a  great  agreement  in 
character ;  they  are 
strong,  coarse,  warlike, 

but  at  the  same  time  capable  of  work  and  receptive  of  education.  In  some 
distinctive  details,  such  as  the  use  of  coloured  bast  and  grass  for  ornament,  the 
Solomon  Islanders  agree  with  New  Guinea.  The  Trobriand,  D'Entrecasteaux, 
and  other  islands  southward  to  Teste  form,  with  eastermost  New  Guinea,  one 
ethnographical  province.  Here  we  begin  to  find  a  higher  proportion  than  in  New 
Guinea  of  population  partly  straight-haired  and  fair-skinned,  with  such  specific 
features  as  the  loin-cloth  made  from  the  pandanus-\&a.i,  the  working  of  small  disks 
of  red  spondylus-sheW  for  ornament,  the  peculiar  mode  of  inserting  the  axe-head, 
navigation    highly  advanced,   and   cannibalism.      Some    of   these    characteristics 


Rattan  cuirass,  throvving-sticks  of  dark  wood,  and  bark  belt,  from  Kaiser 
Wilhelm's  Land.      ( Berlin  Museum. ) 


l82 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


mark  the  transition  from  East  New  Guinea  to  the  more  westerly  regions.  Ahke 
in  New  Guinea  and  the  next  islands  to  the  eastward  there  has  been  developed 
a  style  in  which  the  human  countenance  is  rendered  by  means  of  two  straight 
lines,  one  at  right  angles  to  the  other,  to  indicate  the  nose  and  lower  nm  of  the 
forehead,  a  corresponding  line  giving  the  mouth.  The  effect  of  boredom  pro- 
duced  by  this  physiognomy  has  been   noted   as   being  the  effort   to  portray  the 


Axes  from  the  D'Entrecasteaux  Islands — one-eighth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection.) 

bored  Englishman  ;  but  it  also  reminds  us  of  the  "  tortoise-shell  style "  of  the 
Torres  Islands,  where  it  is  made  necessary  by  the  material.  In  the  case  of  the 
Admiralty  Islanders,  holding  as  they  do  an  intermediate  position  among  the 
rest  of  the  Melanesians,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  their  peculiarities  are 
negative.  Except  the  spear  they  have  no  weapons  ;  lacking  bow  and  arrow, 
throwing-stick,  sling,  and  axe.  Bow  and  arrow  are  wanting  also  among  other 
Melanesians,  and  the  Australians  ;  but  the  latter  have  other  weapons,  in  some 
cases  in  remarkable  abundance  and  variety.  In  the  poverty  of  the  islanders  of 
whom  we  are  speaking  one  might  be  inclined  to  see  an  effect  of  their  isolation, 
an  evidence  of  limited  intercourse.  But  many  other  characteristics  point  to  closer 
affinities,  in  one  or  another  direction,  with  the  inhabitants  of  Humboldt  Bay,  the 
Solomon  Islands,  or  New  Hanover. 


THE  RACES   OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND    THEIR  MIGRATIONS 


183 


The  more  easterly  islands  of  Melanesia  show,  as  in  Fiji  and  the  New  Hebrides, 
the  largest  proportion  of  Polynesian  inflilences.  Fiji  indeed  cannot  be  understood 
apart  from  Tonga  ;  Fiji  is  "  upper,"  Tonga  "  lower."  The  relations  between  these 
two  groups  are  most  intimate.  Physically  the  Fijians  must  be  regarded  as  hybrids 
between  the  Mongoloid  and  the  Negroid  ;  etymologically  the  Tongan  is  of  all 
Polynesian  dialects  the  nearest  to  the  Fijian.  In  style  the  productions  of  Fiji 
bear  the  closest  resemblance  to  those  of  Samoa.  But  the  broad  paddles  of  New 
Hanover,  with  strong  middle  rib,  also  remind  us  vividly  of  this  group.  New 
Caledonia  and  the  Loyalty  Islands  form  a  district  by  themselves.  The  inhabit- 
ants of  the  former  island  are  more  pronounced  negroids  than  those  of  the  latter, 
where,  indeed,  Mare  contains  a  Polynesian  colony,  self-founded  ;  but  in  both 
Polynesian  influences  are 
clearly  apparent.  Deduct- 
ing the  effects  of  the  soil 
and  the  unfavourable  cli- 
mate, there  still  remain 
many  peculiarities  corre- 
sponding to  the  secluded 
position.  Among  these  are 
the  circular  huts,  the  pecu- 
liar shape  of  spears  and 
clubs,  the  absence  of  the 
bow,  the  use  of  the  pretty 
brown  bat's  fur  for  all  kinds 
of  adornments.  Special  to 
New     Caledonia    are     the 

binding  of  the  grip  of  a  weapon  with  string,  or  cloth,  the  attachment  of  woollen 
tassels,  and  the  like  ;  also  the  broad  jade  blades,  the  beak-shaped  clubs,  the 
absence  or  rudeness  of  sculpture.  The  closest  affinities  to  New  Caledonia  are 
shown  by  the  northern  New  Hebrides. 

While  Polynesian  influences  have  flowed  so  copiously  over  the  eastern 
boundary  of  Melanesia  that  they  got  possession  of  whole  islands,  Malay  influences 
have  been  far  less  active  on  the  west  side.  Only  in  western  New  Guinea  are 
they  decidedly  predominant.  On  its  eastern  shores,  till  you  come  towards  Tagai, 
the  people  of  New  Guinea  were  ten  years  ago  still  completely  in  the  stone  age ; 
while  in  the  west  the  working  of  iron  had  long  been  known.  Spear-heads,  short 
swords,  and  knives  soon  became  common  in  the  palaces  on  the  coast  of  Geelvink 
Bay.  The  colonies  coming  from  the  east,  who  settled  in  the  coast  districts  of 
eastern  New  Guinea,  appear  to  have  made  more  impression  than  the  conquerors 
and  rulers  from  the  west.  But  that,  in  spite  of  that,  an  old  connection  must  be 
assumed,  is  quite  clearly  seen  both  from  the  negroid  elements  which,  scattered  as 
they  are  throughout  the  Malay  Archipelago,  are  represented  with  especial  strength 
in  its  eastern  half,  and  also  from  ethnographic  characteristics.  In  the  district 
bounded  to  the  westward  by  a  line  drawn  through  Halmahera  and  Flores,  both 
elements  appear  so  strongly  that  the  region  appears  to  be  one  of  transition  from 
Malay  to  Melanesian.  Here  we  find  forms  of  bows  and  arrows  showing  a 
remarkable  similarity  with  the  Melanesian  ;  so,  too,  older  forms  of  spear,  filing 
of  teeth,  and  tattooing,  have  maintained  a  wide  extension. 


Carred  wooden  plaques,  used  as  stamps,  from  the  Fiji  Islands. 
(Godeffroy  Collection. ) 


i84 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that,  from  the  stream  of  migration  which  entered, 
the  Pacific  from  the  westward,  rills  were  diverted  to  the  continent  of  Australia. 
Here,  too,  we  have  a  mingled  strain,  whose  main  constituents  are  a  fairer  straight- 
haired,  and  a  darker   crisp -haired   race.       Relations  with  an    older   world    may 

unquestionably  be  pre- 
sumed. The  funda- 
mental ideas,  and  many 
details  in  the  initiatory 
rites  for  boys  and  girls, 
are  thoroughly  Ocean- 
ian, and  connect  at  least 
Northern  Australia  with 
the  neighbouring  New 
Guinea  and  its  adjacent 
islands.  Traces  of  taboo 
also  appear  ;  and  if  their 
usage  is  less  sharply 
marked  than  in  Poly- 
nesia, the  cause  may  be 
found  in  the  coarser  life 
and  more  indigent  con- 
dition of  the  Australians. 
In  former  times  more 
consistent  and  more 
highly -finished  customs 
may  have  prevailed.  For 
the  racial  dualism,  which 
the  rapid  progress  of 
crossing  has  done  its 
best  to  obliterate,  we 
can  look,  so  far  as  our- 
present  knowledge  al- 
lows, only  to  Papuas 
and  Malays.  It  is  a 
fact  that  Malays  live, 
temporarily  or  perman- 
ently, among  North  Australian  tribes,  and  exercise  no  small  influence  upon 
them  ;  while  on  the  other  hand  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  temporary 
intercourse  of  the  Torres  Islanders  with  both  Papuas  and  Australians.  On 
the  north-west  coasts  of  Australia  we  can  prove  Malayan  influence  more 
certainly  than  any  other.  The  extension  of  the  bamboo  in  Arnhemland, 
the  existence  of  small-pox  before  the  arrival  of  Europeans,  the  objection  to 
eat  pig-meat,  testify  to  this.  Perhaps  also  we  may  trace  to  the  same  cause 
the  absence  of  the  boomerang  in  North  Australia.  Without  doubt  these  races 
must  have  begun  to  permeate  long  before  the  historical  period.  The  Malay 
fisheries  on  the  North  Australian  coast  are,  says  Campbell,  a  settled  insti- 
tution, pointing  to  a  long  duration.  The  evidence  of  Tasmania  would  lead 
us    to    assume    a   crisp-haired    race    as    originally    inhabiting    Australia ;    for    the 


Jade  battle-axes  and  jade  hatchet,  insignia  of  chiefs,  from  New  Caledonia. 
(Christy  Collection. ) 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS  185 

Tasmanian  hair  was  decidedly  more  woolly  than  the  Australian.  The  apparently 
uniform  conditions  of  Australia  are  complicated  by  what  Bastian  calls  "  the 
shadow  which  the  great  continent  of  Asia  casts  over  these  oceanic  groups  of 
islands."  We  cannot  disprove  that  Malayo-Polynesian  elements  may  have  reached 
Australia  from  the  eastward  also,  just  as  easily  as  they  got  to  New  Guinea  ;  but 
no  evidence  for  it  is  forthcoming.  Norfolk  Island  was  uninhabited  when  dis- 
covered by  Europeans.  Nor  is  the  connection  with  New  Guinea  in  any  way 
intimate.  Whether  remains  of  the  dingo  are  really  found  in  the  Australian 
Post-pliocene  or  not,  probability  is  strongly  in  favour  of  his  having  been  introduced 
by  human  immigrants  ;  and  the  New  Guinea  dog  is  different.  Ethnographical 
objects,  too,  are  not  alike  on  the  two  sides  of  Torres  Straits. 


§   3.  PHYSICAL  QUALITIES  AND   INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  OF 
THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 

Bodily  peculiarities — Racial  marks — Colour — Head — Hair — Albinism — Muscular  strength — Spiritual  Disposi- 
tion— A  race  of  contradictions — Optimistic  critics — Stupidity — Frivolity — Lies  and  Dissimulation — Comedy 
of  King  Finn — Licentiousness — Human  sacrifices,  cannibalism,  and  infanticide — Intellectual  capacity — 
Influence  of  Christianity — Creative  power  of  the  Polynesian  mind — Invention — Mythology — Cosmogony — 
Knowledge  of  geography — Medicine — Reckoning  of  time — Counting — Music  and  dancing — Wrestling  and 
boxing — Games  of  children. 

Among  the  Polynesian  tribes,  distributed  as  they  are  over  a  wide  area  broken  up 
into  numerous  islands,  varying  greatly  in  natural  resources,  and  permeated  by  a 
deeply-rooted  social  organisation,  racial  distinctions  emerge  very  clearly.  It  is 
almost  superfluous  specially  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  in  this  race  too  we  can 
find  no  absolute  unity.  Crossings  have  taken  place,  of  which  we  can  no  longer 
determine  the  individual  elements,  though  doubtless  negroid  constituents  turned 
up  among  them.  But  whatever  may  be  the  history  of  the  Polynesians,  they 
form  a  special  group  of  mankind.  In  close  affinity  with  the  Malay  race  they 
have  a  brown  skin,  with  a  prevailing  tendency  to  light  gradations,  such  as  might 
on  the  average  be  designated  as  olive-brown  ;  though  among  the  Micronesians 
we  find  the  Chinese  yellow,  and  among  the  Samoans  the  light-brown  tint  of 
Southern  Europeans.  The  hair  is  black,  smooth  to  curly.  Finsch  considers 
that  within  these  limits  the  Micronesians  do  not  vary  more  from  the  actual 
Polynesians  than  Swabians  from  North  Germans.  There  are  Polynesian  colonies 
in  the  Micronesian  region,  but  many  Micronesians  come  nearer  to  the  Melanesian 
type. 

Among  the  more  important  bodily  characteristics  we  may  mention  the  pre- 
dominance of  short  skulls,  often  exaggerated  by  artificial  deformation  ;  low,  but 
generally  well-shaped  foreheads,  often  causing  the  facial  angle  to  be  equal  to  that  of 
Europeans  ;  noses  more  often  snub  than  curved  ;  eyes  small,  lively,  usually  placed 
horizontally,  with  remarkably  wide  opening  and  eloquent  expression  ;  cheek  bones 
projecting  forward  rather  than  sideways  ;  and,  lastly,  mouths  well  shaped  in  spite 
of  thick  lips.  In  general  the  lighter  Polynesians,  more  especially  Maoris  and 
Tongans,  resemble  most  the  European  type  even  in  expression  ;  while  the  some- 
what  darker   Micronesians,  as  has    been  said,  approach  the    Melanesian.      The 


1 86 


THE  HISTORY  OF  ^fAI\'K'I^'D 


general  character  is  soft  features  and  pleasing  demeanour.  The  expression 
"  nobly-formed  races,"  is  so  commonly  used  of  the  Polynesians  that  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  point  out  that   it  is   only  their  stature  which   can   be  judged  by  a 


European  standard. 


The  handsomest  woman  of  Samoa,"  says   Hugo  Zoller, 

"  cannot  be  com- 


pared with  any- 
thing more  than 
a  pretty  German 
peasant  girl." 
The  hair  in  its 
finer  texture  and 
tendency  to  form 
waves  or  even 
ringlets,  departs 
from  the  coarse 
straight  Mongol- 
ian form.  The 
best  term  for  it 
is  "  crisp  "  hair. 
Occasionally  wigs 
are  met  with, 
sticking  up  and 
towzled  after  the 
Papuan  fashion. 
The  colour  of  the 
hair  ranges  from 
black  to  chestnut 
brown.  A  lighter 
tinge,  particu- 
larly rusty-brown 
wisps  running 
through  dark 
hair,  and  reddish 
or  yellowish  col- 
oration of  the 
tips,  proceeds 
from  frequent 
bathing  and  pow- 
dering with  lime. 
Albinism  seems 
to  be  rare.     The 

development   of  hair  on   the   face    and   body   is    less   in    straight-haired    than  in 
curly-haired  persons. 

The  bodily  strength  of  the   Polynesians  is  not  very  great ;   the  small  amount 
of  labour  which  many  of  them   perform   hardly  tends   to  a  thorough  development 
of  the  body.      Even   the   most   stalwart-looking   Maoris   possess,  on   the  average 
only  a  fraction   of  an   Englishman's   lifting  power  ;   nor  do  they  excel  in  speed  of 
foot.      Arms  and  legs   run   rather  to  fat  than   to   muscle.      A  notable  corpulence 


Samoan  woman.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album). 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 


187 


is  frequent  as  a  result  of  indolence.  The  average  weight  of  the  men  in  the 
Gilbert  Islands  is,  according  to  Finsch,  about  1 2  stone,  the  maximum  a  little 
over  15.  In  stature  the  Polynesians  hold  a  medium  position.  Finsch's  measure- 
ments give  5  feet  1 1  inches  as  the  highest  figure  for  a  man  of  the  Gilbert 
Islands,  and  5  feet  3^  inches  for  a  woman  of  Upolu,  one  of  the  most  powerful 
and  stoutest  of  Polynesian  women.  The  minima  fall  just  below  5  feet.  Long 
ago  G.  Forster  said  of  the  Easter  Islanders,  who  live  under  conditions  calculated 
to  stunt  them  :  "  We  did  not  find  among  them  a  single  man  who  could  be  called 
tall."  In  the  Marshall  Archipelago  the  natives  of  the  more  northerly  islands, 
which  are  less  visited  by  strangers,  and  produce  food  in  greater  abundance,  are 
men   of  a   taller   and   stronger  stamp  ;  while   the  great  majority  of  those  in  the 


Women  of  the  Gilbert  Islands  and  Marshall  Islands.     (Godeffroy  Album. ) 

southern  islands  are  slender  men  who  grow  old  prematurely.  The  more  weakly 
type  tends  to  prevail  ;  possibly  the  indolence  which  shrinks  from  the  exertion  of 
fishing,  and  limits  itself  to  a  vegetable  diet,  may  have  something  to  do  with  this. 
According  to  Finsch  the  Gilbert  Islanders  may  be  indicated  as  the  strongest. 
They  are  distinguished  by  the  rapidity  with  which  they  multiply,  supplying  an 
abundant  emigration.  Racial  differences  are  to  some  extent  involved  in  the 
social  organisation.  The  lighter  people  of  the  upper  classes  are  descended  from 
Japanese,  Chinese,  and  Spaniards  ;  and  tanning  by  the  sun  assuredly  does  not 
alone  account  for  the  darker  tint  of  the  lower  classes.  Ellis  heard  it  said  when 
a  swarthy  man  passed  :  "  How  d^rk  he  is,  he  must  have  good  bones."  Still  the 
darker  complexions  are  not  found  exclusively  in  the  lower  classes,  while  the 
lighter  skin  of  the  aristocracy  admits  of  exceptions  here  and  there. 

The  acuteness  of  their  senses  is  considerable ;  and  this  holds  good  not  merely 
of  their  cleverness  in  finding  lost  objects,  or  seeing  small  birds  in  covert.  An 
inventive  intelligence  is  native  to  them.  The  Polynesian  has  not  the  childish 
naivete  of  the  negro;  but  at  the,  same  time  he  is  not  so  reserved  as  the  Malay 
nor  so  calculating  as  the  Chinese.      If  in  surrender  to  the  impulses  of  their  nature 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


these  are  genuine  "  natural  "  races, 
on  the  other  hand  the  barriers  of 
tradition  are  rigid  and  social  ordin- 
ances manifold  ;  and  although  they 
attack  Nature  and  each  other  with 
primitive  implements  and  weapons, 
they  have  in  other  directions  given 
proof  of  no  narrow  intellectual  en- 
dowment. If  all  "  natural  "  races 
display  something  contradictory  in 
the  proportion  which  their  cultiva- 
tion bears  to  their  endowment,  the 
Polynesians  are  in  truth  a  race  of 
contradictions.  To  Cook  and  his 
companions  the  Tahitians  and  So- 
ciety Islanders  appeared  as  gentle 
and  agreeable  people,  in  many 
respects  to  be  envied,  fortunate, 
like  children  of  an  extremely  happy 
disposition.  Yet  a  century  ago  the 
Tongans  were  still  cannibals.  And 
if  we  turn  over  the  record  of  the 
dealings  of  the  Tahitians  with  white 
men,  we  shall  find  mention  of  their 
meeting   with   Wallis's   expedition ; 

which  they  met   in  quite  a   different  manner,  and   experienced  a   bloody  repulse. 

By  that  time  the  white  men  had 

made    themselves    feared.       In 

cases  where   they  had    not    re- 
ceived  any  lesson  of  this  kind, 

the  natives  appeared  as  regular 

savages.       Cook     was     himself 

partly  to    blame,  by    his    over- 
confidence,   for    his    murder    on 

Hawaii.       A    whole    series    of 

treacherous  attacks   are  known 

to  have  occurred   in  the   small 

exterior    islands,    such    as    the 

Paumotu,  Savage,  and  Penrhyn 

groups  ;  and  the  history  of  New 

Zealand      records      still     more. 

Without    being     savages     after 

the  fashion  of  the  Bushmen  or 

Australians,  the  Polynesians  are 

of  an  untrustworthy  changeable 

character.       The    Micronesians 

for    the    most   part    maintain  a 

timid     attitude;     but     they    are  A  man  of  Rotuma.     (Godeffroy  Album.) 


A  Tongan.      (Godeffroy  Album. ) 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 


189 


frequently  few  in  number  confined  to  a  solitary  island,  and  almost  defenceless 
against  strangers. 

Under  great  outward  vivacity  lies  the  dulness  of  the  uncultured  nature. 
Even  among  Christian  Polynesians  one  is  struck  by  the  indifference  with  which 
they  meet  a  disgraceful  death  at  the  hand  of  the  executioner  ;  and  the  tranquillity 
of  children  at  the  death  of  their  parents,  particularly  in  blood-steeped  New  Zealand, 
has  been  remarked.  Human  sacrifices  and  cannibalism  must  have  left  their  traces 
in  the  disposition.  These  evil  qualities  are  cloaked  by  a  childish  levity.  The 
task  of  the  criminal  law  is  materially  lightened  by  their  garrulity  ;  they  cannot 
keep  a  s.ecret,  even  to  save  themselves  from  the  scaffold.     Throughout  Polynesia 


A  man  of  Pelew,  and  a  man  of  Yap  in  the  Carolines.      (Godeffroy  Album. ) 

one  hears  plenty  of  quarrelsome  talk  and  sees  very  little  fighting.  Even  in  serious 
warfare  words  play  an  important  part.  Many  words  are  accompanied  by  many 
falsehoods.  An  entertaining  proof  of  the  art  of  the  Polynesians  in  fiction  is 
afforded  by  the  appearance  of  the  sham  king  Finn  on  Cook's  second  visit  to  the 
Friendly  Islands  in  1777.  In  order  to  carry  through  the  part,  many  others  had 
to  take  as  much  share  in  the  farce  as  he  himself;  and  yet  Cook  was  taken  in  for 
some  days,  and  only  began  to  suspect  when  he  saw  the  impostor  do  obeisance  to 
the  real  king. 

The  Polynesians  show  themselves  quite  open  to  the  requirements  of  an 
industrial  life  in  the  European  sense.  The  sugar-plantations  which  form  the 
chief  wealth  of  Hawaii  are  no  doubt  at  present  chiefly  in  the  hands  of  whites  or 
half-breeds ;  but  King  Kamehameha  III.  rendered  essential  service  in  promoting 
the  cultivation  of  the  sugar-cane.  The  first  Christians  on  Maui  performed  a 
wonderful  feat  when  they  built  a  church  1 00  feet  in  length ;  carrying  stone,  lime, 
and  sand  on  their  backs,  and  hauling  timber  with  their  hands.     Twice  the  principal 


I  go 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


rafter  gave  way,  and  for  the  third  time  they  put  it  up  again,  nothing  loth.  It  is, 
to  be  sure,  just  the  vaHant,  laborious,  progressive  Polynesians  who  are  decried  by 
Europeans  as  avaricious  and  stubborn.  The  Samoans  and  Tahitians  are  reckoned 
more  serviceable.  The  profound  difference  between  the  dissolute,  idle,  light- 
skinned  inhabitants  of  fertile  Tahiti,  and  the  industrious,  clever,  sober,  muscular 
native  of  the  poorer  Tonga  Islands  is  instructive.  Is  it  not  significant  that  the 
Tongans  escaped  the  corrupt  aristocratic  rule  of  Tahiti  ? 

In  order  to  form  a  fair  judgment  as  to  the  licentiousness  ascribed  to  the 
Polynesians,  we  must  consider  that  their  excesses  were  described  with  much 
exaggeration  by  visitors  who  only  learned  to  know  the  people  superficially. 
Much  of  it  no  doubt  arises  from  their  general  level  of  culture.  Levity  and 
idleness  have  in  some  places  allowed  sexual  irregularity  to  reach  an  incredible 

pitch  of  corruption  among  the  upper  classes  ;  while 
in  New  Zealand,  in  Samoa,  and  especially  in 
Tonga,  women  hold,  on  the  contrary,  a  high 
position. 

Human  sacrifices,  cannibalism  and  traces  of  it, 
also  infanticide,  will  be  dealt  with  in  the  section 
on  society. 

With  the  first  ray  of  light  which  falls  upon 
the  life  of  Polynesia,  together  with  the  opening-up 
of  the  central  regions  of  the  Pacific,  we  get  a 
glimpse  of  a  strong  movement  of  great  value  in 
the  history  of  civilization.  If  indeed  it  be  too 
much  to  assume  that  a  development  in  the  direc- 
tion of  a  pure  monotheism  was  making  its  way  in 
their  religion  before  the  arrival  of  Christian  influ- 
ences, we  can,  at  any  rate,  recognise  therein  a  powerful  impulse  towards  the  creation 
of  a  pantheon.  With  a  little  more  space  and  a  little  more  stability,  we  should  have 
found  an  Indian  mythology  in  Polynesia.  Morally  the  Polynesians  did  not  and 
do  not  stand  high  ;  and  yet  their  abandonment  of  cannibalism  and  human  sacrifice 
speaks  a  great  deal  for  their  self-education.  It  is  a  progress  towards  humanity  to 
which  full  justice  has  not  been  done  by  all  critics.  Generally  too  the  Polynesians 
have  shown  a  rare  capacity  for  education ;  quite  apart  from  their  faculty  of 
imitating  European  dress-customs.  Nowhere  else  have  missions  so  soon  attained 
to  the  point  of  sending  out  native  teachers.  For  many  years  whole  groups,  such 
as  Tonga,  Samoa,  Hervey,  have  possessed  a  church  and  a  school  in  every  village, 
with  clergy  and  teachers  of  whom  by  far  the  greater  part  are  natives.  At  the 
same  time  these  communities  soon  became  self-supporting.  The  London  Missionary 
Society  has  for  years  no  longer  had  occasion  to  send  pecuniary  aid  to  Samoa ;  on 
the  contrary,  that  Mission  has  itself  forwarded  material  contributions  for  missionary 
purposes  to  other  districts.  Among  the  most  curious  phenomena  are  the 
independent  offshoots  from  Christianity.  Thus  in  Upolu,  Siovedi,  a  native  of 
Savaii,  founded  the  "  gimblet-religion."  Professing  to  converse  with  God  and  to 
work  miracles,  he  enjoined  a  mutual  confession  of  sins  in  cases  of  sickness  ;  and 
his  divine  service  was  rendered  specially  impressive  by  the  discharge  of  firearms. 
Also  in  Samoa,  a  native,  who  taught  the  invocation  of  the  God  of  Heaven, 
brought  with  him  on  his  return  from  the  whale-fishery  an  old  woman  who  used 


Dressed  skull,  from  the  Marshall  Islands. 
(Godeffroy  Collection). 


THE   POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 


IQI 


to  ''  touch "    for   diseases    from    behind    a    curtain,    alleging    that    Christ   resided 
within  her. 

In  all  variations  of  Polynesian  mythology  an  element  of  philosophising 
appears  in  astonishing  luxuriance.  Nowhere  do  we  find  better  confirmation  of 
the  fact  that  at  this  stage  mythology  includes  all  science.  When,  as  in  the 
Society  Islands,  we  find  the  creation  of  spiritual  forces  following  immediately 
upon  the  emerging  of  Ru  from  the  side  of  his  mother  Papa,  we 
are  in  the  region  of  abstractions.  Not  till  then  is  the  material 
world  created  by  the  union  of  Tangaroa  with  the  various  forces 
of  Nature.  We  get  the  impression  of  natural  science  in  embryo 
when  Tangaroa  produces,  with  the  goddess  of  the  external  world, 
clouds  and  rain  ;  with  the  goddess  of  the  inner  world,  the  germs 
of  movement ;  with  the  air,  the  rainbow,  the  light,  the  moon  ; 
and  with  a  goddess  dwelling  in  the  earth,  volcanic  fire.  This 
structure  of  ideas,  the  creation  of '  thoughtful  minds,  was  not 
adapted  for  wider  extension,  and  therefore  the  universal  myth- 
ology of  Polynesia  could  not  accommodate  itself  to  the  analysis 
of  its  simple  cosmogony,  which  made  the  world  result  from  the 
embrace  of  heaven  and  earth,  into  these  abstract  conceptions. 
But  in  the  great  simple  images  of  the  sea,  the  islands,  the  earth 
as  a  fixed  island  or  floating  in  the  sea,  in  their  need  of  orienta- 
tion by  the  aid  of  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  the  Polynesians  found 
an  inducement  to  observe  the  heavenly  phenomena  more  keenly, 
and  to  form  cosmogonic  imaginations.  Their  conception  of  the 
world,  to  the  formation  of  which  fancy  has  contributed  more 
than  understanding,  is  yet  based  upon  a  mass  of  observations. 
The  moon  is  a  woman,  with  an  indwelling  capacity  for  renewal. 
The  man  in  the  moon  is  Rona,  who  stumbled  as  he  went  about 
at  night  and  was  taken  up  by  the  moon  with  the  branch  of  the 
tree  to  which  he  tried  to  hold.  Both  sun  and  moon  renew  their 
youth  in  the  spring  of  the  water  of  life.  While  the  moon  and 
stars  are  in  a  heaven  nearer  the  earth,  namely  the  third,  the  sun 
shines  only  from  the  fifth  ;  else  he  would  burn  up  everything. 
Sun  and  moon  once  lived  together  and  produced  the  dry  land  Bamboo  flutes  from 
of  the   earth.      And  while   the  sun  is  on  one  side   made  fast  to      Hawaii.      (British 

.  ....  ,     ,        .  Museum. ) 

the  moon  by  Maui,  on  the  other  it  is  bound  to  the  earth  by  its 
own  beams.  From  this  twofold  attachment  also  eclipses  arise.  The  stars  were 
created  by  the  ancestors  of  the  present  Polynesian  race.  As  the  population  of 
heaven  they  are  divided  into  two  parts,  between  which  the  Milky  Way,  or  "  great 
shark,"  forms  the  boundary.  The  shooting-stars  are  the  means  by  which  they 
send  messages  to  their  former  creators.  Among  the  constellations  Orion  with  the 
Southern  Cross  and  the  neighbouring  stars  as  "  Tamarereti's  Canoe,''  and  the 
Pleiads,  under  the  name  of  "  the  bowsprit  of  the  canoe,"  enjoy  special  consideration. 
In  the  rainbow  they  see  also  the  bow,  or  the  gleaming  bowstring,  or  the  ladder 
whereby  the  souls  of  chiefs  ascend  to  heaven. 

The  frequent  migrations  of  the  Polynesians  from  one  island  to  another  led 
in  course  of  time  to  the  acquirement  of  a  certain  stock  of  knowledge.  The 
talented  Tupaia  drew  for  Cook  a  kind  of  map  on  which  numerous  islands  of 


rs? 


192 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Polynesia  were  marked.  The  names  were  found  to  be  pretty  correct,  but  not 
the  position  and  size.  Intelligent  people  were  fairly  well  informed  about  neigh- 
bouring islands  ;  they  distinguished  the  low  or  coral  islands  from  the  ofty  or 
volcanic,  and  knew  whether  they  were  permanently  or  only  occasionally  inhabited, 
and  the  like.  The  brother  of  the  chief  of  Raraka  drew  with  chalk  on  the  deck 
of  Wilkes's  vessel  all  the  islands  of  Paumotu  that  he  knew,  and  named  three, 
which  were  actually  discovered  later. 

What  the  Polynesians  knew  rested  on  a  great  persistency  of  tradition.      iheir 

stock  of  culture  shows  of  how  much  a 
talented  race,  without  writing,  and  we 
may  add,  in  its  stone  age,  is  capable. 
Mythology,  historical  tradition,  and 
star-lore,  are  taught  together  by  special 
persons,  and  a  little  medicine  besides. 
Part  of  this  is  kept  secret.  Genealogies 
are  taught  at  night  to  promising  boys. 
On  the  memorial  tablets  they  find  the 
important  names  in  the  notches,  dis- 
:  tinguished  by  special  ornamentation. 
When  they  become  priests  they  recog- 
nise each  other  by  secret  passwords. 
The  traditional  hymns  which  are  re- 
cited at  purificatory  festivals  are  in  the 
keeping  of  the  priests.  Besides  the 
sacred,  there  is  also  a  profane  tradition, 
the  depositaries  of  which  are  often 
curiously  enough  in  the  lowest  ranks  of 
society.  To  them  are  entrusted  his- 
torical memories,  the  lays  of  the  heroes, 
the  myths  which  have  become  old  wives' 
fables.  Among  the  priests  a  kind  of 
medical  science  had  developed  itself, 
the  sound  principles  of  which  were 
smothered  under  the  hocus-pocus  of 
The  Tahitian  places  the  seat  of  life  and  natural  dis- 
the  belly,  and  uses  the  term  "  bowels "  to  denote  what  we  express 
On  the  other  hand  the  head  is  as  with  us  the  seat  of  the  human 


Dancing  stilts,  from  the  Marquesas. 
Ethnographical  Museum. ) 


Munich 


supernatural   commerce. 

position   in 

by  "  heart." 

thinking  faculty,  and  for  this  reason  receives  special  veneration,  which  to  be  sure 

has  a  cannibal   tinge.      Among  the  more  rational    modes   of  treating   the  sick, 

"  massage  "  has  the  fifst  place.      Among   medical  apparatus  we  find  bottle-gourds 

for  administering  injections,  and  the  claws  of  a  Squilla  for  puncturing  pustules. 

The  Polynesian  language  possesses  numerals  to  denominate  the  thousands. 
Lehu,  •'  ashes,"  indicates  the  limit  of  the  numerable.  As  a  rule  the  system  is 
naturally  that  of  division  into  fives  and  tens  ;  but  Tou-Fa,  that  is  "  four-reckoning  " 
forms  in  the  Marquesas  and  Hawaii  a  scale  with  forty  as  its  peculiar  unit.  In 
Hawaii,  Ule,  Pelew,  and  elsewhere,  they  used,  to  facilitate  counting,  a  system 
which  was  also  highly  elaborated  in  Peru,  of  tying  knots  in  string.  The  Tahitians 
tied  strips  of  coco-palm  leaf  in  bundles  ;  the  New  Zealanders  used  notched  sticks. 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 


193 


Time  is  reckoned  by  lunar  months. 
In  Tahiti  there  were  fourteen  of  these, 
two  of  which  Forster  regarded  as 
intercalary.  The  names  of  the  m.onths 
in  many  cases  are  referable  to  agricul- 
ture and  the  phenomena  of  vegetable 
life.  In  New  Zealand  we  find  thirteen 
months,  and  the  tenth  reckoned  twice 
over.  The  names  of  the  months  and 
the  first  day  of  the  year  vary  from 
one    island    to    another,    and    besides 


I.   Paddles  used  at  dances,  from  Easter  Island — one-thirteenth  real  size  (Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnology), 
ii.   Bamboo  dancing-stilts,  from  the  Marquesas — one-tenth  real  size  (Christy  Collection). 

O 


194  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


that,  traces  remain  of  another  system  of  chronology  dividing  the  year  mto 
two  parts  with  the  disappearance  and  reappearance  of  the  Pleiads,  thus 
reckoning  six  months  only.  Thus  in  a  number  of  islands  New  Year's  day  falls 
at  the  southern  winter  solstice.  Besides  this,  they  reckon  by  generations ;  and 
this  reckoning  goes  back  twenty-nine  generations  in  Rarotonga,  twenty-seven  in 
Mangareva,  amounting  to  a  handsome  tale  of  centuries,  but  of  course  starting 
from  mythical  times. 

Song  and  dance  occupy  a  large  part  of  the  life  of  the  dwellers  in  the  fortunate 
isles  of  the  tropic  zone.  The  Maoris,  too,  sing  on  every  occasion  ;  at  work,  in 
dancing,  in  rowing,  at  their  sports,  or  when  marching  to  war.  They  especially 
like  amoebean  songs,  in  which  choruses  alternate  with  individual  chants.  But 
the  character  of  their  songs  is  not  cheerful,  however  cheerful  may  be  the  mood 
which  inspires  them  ;  rather  are  they  solemn.  The  Polynesians  have  a  decided 
sense  for  rhythm  and  even  for  rhyme.  At  the  more  important  performances, 
monologues,  dialogues,  even  the  rudiment  of  a  drama,  often  consisting  in  the 
mimic  representation  of  a  quarrel,  ending  in  blows,  are  put  on  the  stage  between 
pas  seuls.  On  these  occasions  dancing-wands  or  dancing-stilts,  often  finely  carved, 
are  in  use.  Cook's  companion,  Anderson,  describes  a  musical  entertainment  in 
Tonga  as  follows :  "  Eighteen  men  sat  in  the  ring  of  spectators,  four  or  five 
having  bamboo-tubes  closed  at  the  lower  end.  These  they  steadily  struck  almost 
vertically  on  the  ground  in  slow  time  ;  muffled  notes,  varying  according  to  the 
length  of  the  tube,  being  given  out.  Another  musician  produced  clear  tones  by 
striking  with  two  sticks  a  long  split  bamboo  which  lay  on  the  ground  in  front  of 
him.  The  rest  sang  a  soft  air,  so  much  mellowed  by  the  rougher  tones  of  the  simple 
instruments  that  no  one  could  help  recognising  the  power  and  pleasing  melodious- 
ness of  the  music."  On  other  occasions  hollow  tree-stems  are  beaten  like  drums 
with  two  sticks.  Of  all  the  manifold  European  instruments  the  drum  was  the 
only  instrument  of  which  the  Tongans  would  take  any  notice  ;  and  this  they 
thought  inferior  to  their  own.  Micronesian  drums  are  distinguished  for  their 
marked  hour-glass  shape.  Particular  drums  are  used  in  divine  service,  and 
are  regarded  as  sacred.  Bamboo  flutes  and  shell  trumpets  are  everywhere 
common. 

Among  the  dances  are  also  included  the  war  and  weapon  games,  and  the 
favourite  wrestling  and  boxing  contests.  In  Hawaii,  when  Cook  was  there,  even 
the  girls  took  part  in  these.  The  Polynesians  have  a  great  liking  for  games.^ 
One  of  their  games  is  very  like  our  draughts,  but  appears  to  be  more  complicated, 
since  the  board  has  238  squares,  divided  into  rows  of  fourteen.  Another 
consists  in  hiding  a  stone  in  a  piece  of  cloth,  and  trying  to  find  it  by  hitting 
with  a  stick  ;  in  this  game  the  betting  is  the  important  point.  Ball-games  are 
very  popular.  In  the  Hawaiian  game  called  Lala,  a  wheel-shaped  stone  {Maika), 
is  thrown  as  far  as  possible  ;  and  players  stake  all  their  property,  their  wives  and 
children,  their  arm  and  leg  bones  (after  their  death),  and  at  last  even  their 
own  persons  on  one  throw.  Another  pastime  is  racing  between  boys  and 
girls.  Swimming  in  the  surf  with  the  help  of  a  board  or  spar  is  also  in 
some    measure    a    game    of   chance ;     it    is    played,    especially    in    Hawaii,    by 

'  [Mr.  Stevenson  mentions  somewhere  that  cricket-matches  in  Samoa  used  to  be  played  by  whole  villages, 
some  hundreds  on  a  side,  and  to  last  for  weeks.  At  length  the  waste  of  time  and  cost  of  entertaining  the 
"  visitors"  reached  such  a  pitch  that  the  chiefs  had  to  interfere.] 


Printed  "by  the  BibliograpMsches  InsUtut.  leijzig-. 

PATTERN    OF    POLYNESIAN  TAPA. 

(From  Cook's  coUECtioiL  ia  the  ethnograpliical  Museum,  "Vleima.,) 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS  i95 

both  sexes  with  much  dexterity  and  pluck.  Little  boats  are  a  frequent  toy 
of  children  ;  who  also,  like  their  elders,  are  fond  of  ball -play.  The  young 
New  Zealanders  have  a  special  predilection  for  flying  kites.  Another  game 
of  theirs  is  to  throw  up  a  ball  made  of  leaves  bound  together,  and  catch 
it  on  a  stick  sharpened  at  both  ends.  Besides  these,  games  with  the  fingers, 
like  the  Italian  morra,  are  very  common  ;  and  the  players  are  extremely  clever 
at  them. 


§  4.  DRESS,  WEAPONS,  AND   IMPLEMENTS  OF  POLYNESIANS 

AND  MICRONESIANS 

Dress  and  ornament — Tattooing — Deformations  of  the  body — Feather  ornaments — Modes  of  wearing  the  hair 
— Objects  used  for  ornament — Bark  cloth — Tapa — Mats — Weapons  and  implements — Lack  of  iron — 
Working  in  stone — Manufacture  of  weapons  from  wood — Spears — Clubs — Limits  of  diffusion  of  bow  and 
arrow — Slings —  Industrial  activity. 

The  stage  of  culture  which  the  Polynesians  have  reached  is  very  clearly 
expressed  in  their  external  appearance  ;  that  is,  in  their  dress,  their  ornaments, 
their  equipment.  Living  under  a  fortunate  sky,  and  surrounded  with  water, 
both  Polynesians  and  Micronesians  bathe  often,  and  are,  therefore,  a  cleanly 
race.  Unluckily  they  frequently  destroy  the  effect  of  this  virtue  by  excessive 
anointing  of  themselves  with  coco-palm  oil  or  chewed  coco -nut.  They  prefer 
fresh  water  to  salt  for  bathing,  and  regard  both  as  a  good  remedy  against 
illness.  Women  with  their  newly -born  infants,  and  even  people  in  mortal 
sickness,  will  bathe. 

Artificial  mutilations  and  embellishments  of  the  person  are  widely  spread. 
Deformation  of  the  skull,  both  by  flattening  it  behind  and  elongating  it  towards 
the  vertex,  is  found  in  isolated  instances  in  Tahiti,  Samoa,  Hawaii,  and  the 
Paumotu  group,  but  occurs  nowhere  with  such  frequency  as  on  Mallicollo  in  the 
New  Hebrides,  where  the  skull  is  squeezed  extraordinarily  flat.  Flattening  of 
the  nose  is  practised  in  Tahiti  and  among  the  Yap  Islanders  ;  and  the  nasal 
septum  is  often  bored  to  allow  of  the  insertion  of  flowers  or  feathers.  The  ears 
are  bored,  and  bits  of  greenstone,  teeth  of  men  and  sharks,  feathers  and  flowers, 
stuck  in  for  ornament.  On  Easter  Island,  as  in  Micronesia,  the  ear-lobes  are 
dragged  into  flaps  by  heavy  wooden  plugs.  The  Micronesians  also  bore  the  rim 
of  the  ear  in  various  ways. 

Tattooing  nowhere  reaches  such  perfection  as  in  these  regions.  In  Polynesia 
the  men  are  in  general  more  tattooed  than  the  women  ;  but  in  some  places  both 
sexes  are  alike,  and  on  Nukuor  the  women  only  are  thus  adorned.  The  custom 
of  tattooing  the  face  was  not  in  use  among  all  Polynesians,  particularly  not  in 
Rarotonga  ;  though  universal  among  the  Maoris,  with  whom  the  Rarotongans 
were  brought  into  the  closest  contact.  The  special  forms  of  tattooing  intended  to 
excite  fear  seem  to  have  left  off  since  the  introduction  of  European  modes  of 
fighting.  Another  advantage  claimed  for  tattooing  is  that  it  obliterates  differences 
of  age.  Lastly  the  embellishment  resulting  from  it  must  not  be  forgotten  ;  as  the 
tattooer's  song  says  : 


196 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


.  .  .  Every  line  be  duly  drawn. 

On  the  man  who's  rich  and  great 

Shape  your  figures  fair  and  straight ; 

On  the  man  who  cannot  pay 

Make  them  crooked,  coarse,  and  spla)'. 

Here,  as  with   other   Polynesians,  tattooing  is  no  doubt  founded  upon,  and 
proceeds  from,  some  religious  idea.      It  is  regarded  as  a  sacred  profession,  which 


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Tattooed  Maoris.      (From  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Herr  Max  Buchner. ) 


is  exercised  by  the  priest  to  the  accompaniment  of  prayers  and  hymns.  The 
figures  depicted  are  often  those  of  sacred  animals  like  snakes  and  lizards.  In 
Samoa  it  is  based  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Aiua  or  tutelary  spirit  in  beast  shape  ; 
which  was  why  the  missionaries  found  it  so  hard  to  put  an  end  to  the  practice. 
In  the  Micronesian  region  tattooing  has  become  to  a  great  extent  a  pure  matter 
of  decoration,  but  not  everywhere.  On  Nukuor  the  women  live  for  three  months 
secluded  in  the  sacred  house,  and  bathe  in  the  sea  before  undergoing  the  operation,, 
which  extends  only  to  a  small  portion  of  the  lower  part  of  the  body.  In  the 
Radack  group  the  patient  spends  the  previous  night  in  the  house  of  the  chief,. 
who  prays  for  favourable  tokens.  In  the  Society  and  Paumotu  Islands,  the 
Marquesas,  the  Carolines,  differences  are  made  according  to  rank  ;  the  common 
people  being  tattooed  on  the  loins  only,  whilst  the  Ern  or  Art'h'  are  distinguished 
by  large  circular  markings  over  the  whole  body.  In  the  Gilbert  Islands  a  poor 
man  who  is  tattooed  enjoys  more  influence  in  the  general  council  than  a  rich  man 
whose  surface  is  blank.     On  Rotuma  caste-distinctions  are  indicated  by  tattooing.. 


THE   POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 


197 


Yet  the  chief's  rank  is  not  always  thus  expressed  ;  many  chiefs  are  but  slightly 
tattooed,  while  ordinary  citizens  show  this  ornament  all  over  their  persons.  In 
the  Marshall  Islands  the  right  of  tattooing  the  cheeks  is  reserved  to  the  chiefs, 
while  on  Mortlock  Island  differences  of  rank  are  shown  in  the  decoration  of  the 
legs.  The  two  sides  of  the  body  are  often  unsymmetrical,  and  in  this  case  the 
right  side  receives  the  more  elaborate  treatment.  The  Samoans  select  for  tattooing 
exactly  the  region  which  we  cover  with  bathing-drawers  ;  the  effect  produced 
being  that  of  a  striped  and  spotted  cloth  wrapped  about  them.  Among  the 
Maoris  it  took  years  before  the  body  was  ornamented  up  to  the  design  conceived 
in  ^;he  artist's  fancy  ;  but  with  them  the  traits  of  the  face 
are  literally  dissolved  in  arabesques.  The  operation,  as 
applied  to  lips,  eyelids,  and  nose,  was  painful,  especially 
before  the  introduction  of  iron  ;  in  the  Hervey  Islands, 
Forster  saw  even  tenderer  portions  of  the  frame  sedu- 
lously tattooed.  The  method  is  in  this  wise.  The  figure 
is  drawn  where  required  ;  then  a  little  stick,  pointed 
with  stone,  bone  (human  bone  for  choice),  or  iron,  is 
tapped  with  a  wooden  mallet  so  as  to  form  a  series  of 
punctures  along  the  lines.  The  tattooing  tools  consist 
of  an  instrument  something  like  a  little  hoe,  made  of 
hard  wood — four  shapes  occur  in  Samoa — the  flat  blade 
of  which  terminates  in  a  number  of  sharp  teeth,  and  a 
little  mallet  made  of  the  same  wood  and  shaped  like  a 
paddle,  which  serves  to  drive  it  in.  For  colouring,  the 
Maoris  use  the  soot  of  kaiiri-'^me.  wood. 

Besides  this,  in  time  of  mourning  the  skin  of  the 
face,  arms,  and  legs  has  to  undergo  cutting  with  sharp 
shells,  while  at  festivities  it  was  usual  to  colour  it  with 
red  and  black  paint.  Thus  when  Cook  visited  Easter 
Island  the  women  had  painted  their  faces  with  ruddle, 
some   also  with  the  yellow  dye  of  the  turmeric  ;  others 

whitening  them  with  cross-streaks  of  lime.  Herewith  we  may  reckon  the  fact 
that  in  accordance  with  the  proverb  "  No  wife  for  a  hairy  man,"  every  vestige 
of  hair  is  removed  from  the  face  ;  though  it  is  otherwise  in  Micronesia.  In  other 
parts  of  the  body  the  hair  is  extracted  with  tweezers  made  of  mussel-shell. 
Circumcision  in  a  modified  form  is  very  common  ;  though  over  large  regions  such 
as  Hawaii  and  New  Zealand  it  is  not  practised,  and  elsewhere,  as  in  the  Marquesas, 
is  not  universal.  This  operation  also  is  of  a  religious  character,  and  is  performed 
by  the  priests. 

The  mode  of  wearing  the  hair  is  suited  to  its  stiff  growth,  and  is  simple 
accordingly.  It  is  either  worn  unfastened  and  falling,  or  is  cut  off.  The  latter 
course  seems,  in  the  Society  Islands  and  their  neighbourhood,  to  have  been 
enjoined  upon  all  women  except  those  of  the  royal  family.  In  the  Friendly 
Islands  men  and  women  wear  the  hair  cut  short  and  combed  upwards  in  bristles. 
By  powdering  with  lime  the  tips  are  reddened,  while  turmeric  gives  a  golden  gloss. 
The  fashion  of  wearing  the  hair  tied  in  a  top-knot  may  perhaps  be  an  imitation  : 
on  the  very  first  day  of  Cook's  visit  a  Tahitian  chief  copied  his  bag-wig.  With 
the  imperfect  cutting-tools  at  their  disposal,  the  shaving  of  the  head  was  no  light 


Tattooing  instruments  from  the 
Friendly  Islands  —  one  -  third 
real  size.     (British  Museum). 


igS 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


matter  ;  and  there  were  few  among  the  achievements  of  civilization  which  the 
Polynesians  had  cause  to  prize  so  highly  as  scissors  and  razors.  In  Micronesia 
the  head-ornament  consists  almost  everywhere  of  a  long  narrow  wooden  comb, 
with  ten  or  twelve  teeth,  decorated  about  the  handle,  and  at  times  furnished  with 
a  rich  feather-ornament.     The  long  hairpins  serve  also  to  allay  the  irritation  of 

frequent  insect-bites.  The 
curly  hair  of  the  Gilbert 
Islanders  is  frizzed  up  with 
a  stick  till  it  stands  out  in 
a  crown.  On  Mortlock 
Island  the  head -ring  is 
covered  with  iibres  after 
the  manner  of  a  brush ; 
while  on  Nukuor  the  head- 
dress is  formed  of  a  long 
plate  of  wood,  broadening 
towards  the  top.  This  sort 
of  thing,  however,  must  no 
doubt  be  regarded  as  a 
dance -ornament  or  a  reli- 
gious emblem.  The  ances- 
tral statues  often  carry  a 
similar  adornment.  Actual 
head-coverings  are  not  usual, 
or  are  permitted  only  at 
night,  or  out  of  the  country. 
In  the  Carolines,  as  formerly 
in  Hawaii,  European  hats 
are  directly  imitated.  On 
Fakaafo  in  the  Tokelau 
Islands,  Hale  saw  boat- 
men wearing  eye -shades 
of  closely- plaited  material 
bound  on  to  their  foreheads, 
just  as  weak-sighted  people 

A  man  of  Ponap^  in  the  Carolines.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  ^^^^      ^'^ .^'^      "^-    . 

Album.)  As    With    tattoomg,   SO 

,      ,  feather    ornaments    extend 

back  from  the  domain  of  secular  fashion  to  that  of  religion.  Birds  are  among 
the  sacred  animals,  and  this  is  especially  the  case  with  that  bird  which  in  its  red 
tai  -feathers  affords  the  article  most  sought  for  ornamental  purposes  among  the 
Polynesians,  the  Tropic-bird  {Phaethon).  At  one  time  no  article  of  commerce  was 
in  such  demand  in  the  Society  Islands.  The  feathers  were  stuck  on  to  banana- 
leaves,  which  were  bound  on  the  forehead  ;  and  even  on  the  coco-nut  fibre  aprons 
of  the  dancing-girls.  The  most  valuable  head-dresses  were  made  of  feathers. 
Other  objects  of  wide  distribution  were  the  supple  necklaces  of  twisted  string, 
in  which  coloured  feathers  were  twined.  In  the  Marquesas  and  on  Easter 
Island  feather-diadems   were   also   worn.       But  it  was  in    Hawaii  that   feather- 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS  199 

ornament  reached  its  greatest  development  and  its  highest  value.  The  feathers 
of  Melithreptes  Pacifica  were  luxuries  which  forty  years  ago  were  permitted  only 
to  the  most  distinguished  people.  Helmet-shaped  head-dresses  were  decorated 
with  yellow  feathers,  quite  reminding  one  in  their  shape  and  colour  of  the  head- 
gear worn  by  Buddhist  priests. 

Trifles  of  the  most  various  kind  find  employment  for  decorative  purposes.  In 
its  shells  of  many  colours  the  sea  provides  copious  material.  Flowers  and  tendrils 
are  worn  in  tasteful  style  round  the  neck,  in  the  hair,  in  the  ears,  even  in  the 
nose.  Knotted  strings  oi  pandanus-\e.z.i  or  coco-nut  fibre  serve  not  only  for  purposes 
of  divination,  but,  as  on  Ule,  for  the  reckoning  of  time ;  and  many  chiefs  wear 
them  for  that  purpose  round  their  necks.  Or  are  we  to  see  in  this  a  kind  of 
record  of  memoranda  {Dui)  such  as  the  chiefs 
carry  in  Pelew  ?  To  these  superstition  adds 
shells  and  bones  of  particular  shape,  human 
bones,  human  teeth  ;  even  millipedes  are  strung 
together  for  necklaces.  Pendants  of  birds' 
bones  and  ear-ornaments  of  albatross-skin  were 
favourite  modes  of  adornment  with  the  New 
Zealanders.  On  Tongatabu  the  natives  used 
as  ornaments  the  iron  nails  which  Cook  had 
brought  for  trade-purposes  ;  one  nail  was  the 
price  of  a  hen.  In  Tonga  chains  were  made 
of  long  thin  leg -bones,  alternating  with  small 
brown  snail-shells,  and  from  them  hung  a  large 
mother-of-pearl  shell.     Single  teeth,  birds  carved 

from  sperm-whales'  teeth,  black  and  white  beads      Breastplate   of  mother-of-pearl  set   in   iron. 

.  and  with  sling  of  human  hair — one-fourth 

made  from  shells,  are  also  hung  round  the  neck.        real  size.    (Christy  Collection. ) 
Combs  made  of  the  stalks  of  plants,  bound  close 

and  evenly  round  the  upper  end  with  finely-plaited  fibres  are  among  the  most 
beautiful  productions  of  Tongan  art.  In  Hawaii  the  ornaments  are  either  for 
the  feet,  thickly  set  with  dogs'  teeth,  snail-shells,  or  beans,  or  else  armlets  made 
of  carved  pieces  of  bone  or  tortoise-shell,  all  of  one  size,  fastened  into  a  flexible 
whole  by  doubled  threads  passed  through  them.  Similar  strings  with  closely- 
ranged  disks  of  shell,  divided  by  smaller  disks  of  a  black  nutshell,  are  used  as 
money  and  also  occur  as  foot  and  arm  ornaments. 

In  Micronesia  also  garlands  of  fresh  flowers,  red  and  yellow,  play  an  important 
part  in  feminine  adornment.  A  shell,  a  circular  piece  of  mother-of-pearl  or 
tortoiseshell,  little  polished  disks  of  Conus  shell,  all  strung  on  a  thread  of  human 
hair,  form  the  favourite  gaud  of  the  Gilbert  and  Marshall  Islanders.  On  Pingelap 
bits  of  red  Spondylus  shell  are  liked  for  necklaces  ;  elbow-rings  of  Conus  and 
Nautilus  shells  are  worn  on  Yap. 

A  Polynesian  with  all  his  jewellery  upon  him  gives  the  impression  of  being 
overlaid  with  varied  hues.  But  the  taste  for  colour,  in  the  absence  of  staring 
mineral  pigments,  was  formerly  much  better  developed  than  it  is  now  that 
European  traders  have  taken  to  dressing  these  people  in  their  stuffs  at  so  much 
a  yard.  Both  sexes  among  the  Polynesians  are  graceful ;  nor  is  coquetry 
unknown.  On  Sundays  the  Samoan  women  put  on  a  long  and  ample  chemise- 
like garment,  always  of  a  bright  colour,  which  suits  them  charmingly.     When 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


they  go  to  church  they  add  a  tiny  straw-hat,  decked  with  flowers  and  ribbons  of 
many  colours,  stuck  as  much  as  possible  on  the  side  of  the  head.      For  dancing, 


i.   Woman  of  Ponap^.     2.   Woman  of  the  Paumotu  Islands  (From  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album). 
3.   Women  of  the  Society  Islands  (From  photograph  in  the  Dammara  Album). 

masks  are  worn  ;  also  a  peculiar  ear-ornament,  and  skirts  of  leaves  so  dry  that 
as  they  move   to  the  tune  a   rustling   sound    arises.     Red   paint   is   also   freely 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 


employed,  and  they  carry  paddle-shaped  dancing-wands.  The  Polynesians  belong 
to  the  better-clad  I'aces ;  they  have  advanced  far  beyond  the  point  of  mere  covering 
and  gone  in  the  direction  of  luxury.  For  this  reason  their  bark  stuffs,  tapa  3ir\d  gnaiu, 
and  their  mats  form  the  largest  and  most  valuable  part  of  their  property ;  in  some 
districts  mats  are  a  recognised  form  of  currency.  In  many  cases  a  skirt  is  worn 
girt  about  the  waist  and  falling  to  the  feet ;  the  Tahitian  women  used  to  wear  a 
cloth  over  their  shoulders  with  an  opening  for  the  head  in  the  middle,  and,  in 
addition,  a  skirt  made  of  finer  stuff.  Both  sexes  wore  another  cloth  wound  turban 
fashion  round  the  head.  In  the  Friendly  Islands  the  dress  was  simpler ;  the 
skirt  of  the  men  was  twisted  up  in  a  great  bunch  behind  often  very  short ;  that 
of  the  women  tied  below  the 
breast,  and  as  a  rule  not  ac- 
companied by  the  cape.  Simi- 
larly in  Samoa  and  the  neigh- 
bouring islands  the  dress  of 
men  and  women  consists  of  a 
piece  of  cotton  cloth  wound 
round  the  hips  and  reaching  to 
the  knee  ;  leaves  are  frequently 
employed  for  the  same  purpose. 
In  wet  weather  the  bark  cloth 
is  often  replaced  by  a  mantle 
of  long  broad  leaves  which 
hang  down  in  a  fringe ;  on 
solemn  and  festive  occasions 
the  natives  put  on  a  fine  mat 
of  plaited  fibre.  The  inhabit- 
ants of  the  eastward  islands 
are  scantily  clothed.  The 
Easter  Islanders,  when  first 
seen  by  Forster,  were  either 
quite  naked  or  with  an  inade- 
quate apron  hanging  from  the 
girdle.     In  the  Society  Islands, 

on    the   contrary,  the   luxury   of     Samoan  lady  with  hair  dressed  high.      (From  the  Godeffroy  Album. ) 

clothing  acquires  a  symbolical 

significance.  The  war-clothes  there  consist  of  three  poncho-like  garments  put  on 
one  over  another :  the  undermost  a  long  white  one,  over  that  a  red,  and  outside 
all  a  short  brown  one.  A  dense  envelopment  of  the  whole  body  in  as  many 
cloths  as  possible  stands  for  a  sign  of  a  peaceful  reception.  In  the  time  of 
Cook  and  Forster  the  Tahitian  dancing-girls  wore  a  piece  of  brown  stuff  closely 
wrapped  round  the  breast.  About  the  hips  was  a  pad  of  four  layers  of  cloth, 
one  upon  another,  alternately  red  and  white,  bound  close  with  a  cord  whence  a 
mass  of  white  cloth  hung  to  the  feet.  The  dress  of  the  New  Zealanders  consisted 
of  skirt  and  mats  ;  these  were  fastened  on  the  right  shoulder  in  men,  on  the  left 
in  women,  the  men  wearing  in'  addition  a  flax  belt  from  which  hung  the  mere  and 
battle-axe.  Head  and  feet  remained  a?  a  rule  uncovered,  though  some  tribes 
on   the  middle  island  had  flax  sandals.     What  the  axe  of  greenstone  is  as  a 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


production  of  male  industry,  the  mat  is  in  the  case  of  the  women.  From  flax 
alone  they  prepared  twelve  different  mats.  Besides  this,  rugs  were  made  of,  or 
trimmed  with,  the  skins  of  dogs  and  birds.  The  only  distinction  of  rank,  other 
than    tattooing,  was    shown   by  the    mats.      Every  tribe   had   at  one   time  some 


Man  of  the  Ruk  Islands.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album. ) 

special   pattern  of  these,  the  differences   consisting  in  the  preparation  of  the  fibre 
and  in  the  ornamentation. 

The  clothing  of  the  Micronesians  is  less  copious.  In  the  northern  Pelew 
Islands  we  find  men  going  quite  naked.  On  Nukuor  any  clothing  beyond  the 
absolute  requirements  of  decency  is  allowed  only  at  night  and  outside  the  reef. 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 


203 


The  Mortlock  and  Ruk  Islanders  are  at  the  other  end  of  the  scale  with  their 
poncho-like  mantles  woven  of  musa  and  hibiscus  fibres  and  having  the  hole  for 
the  head  bordered  with  shell  ornament.  On  the  other  hand,  on  Ruk  the  boys 
do  not  obtain  the  mantle  and  therewith  the  privileges  of  male  society  until  a  later 
age  than  that  at  which  the  girls  are  clothed  with  the  apron.  Here  the  list  of 
a  chiefs  wardrobe  consists  of  mantle,  belt,  ear-ornaments,  and  rings  of  nutshell, 
two  necklaces,  armlets,  and  breast- 
ornament.  A  Caroline  Islander  of 
the  old  style  wears  in  the  first  place 
a  shirt  made  out  of  narrow  strips  of 
coco-palm  leaves  reaching  almost 
to  the  knee,  over  which  the  men  on 
festive  occasions  put  a  second  of  a 
pretty  yellow  colour,  broad  in  the 
fibre  and  longer.  Sometimes  Caro- 
line Islanders  who  have  become 
Europeanised,  continue  to  wear  the 
skirt  under  their  shirts.  Besides 
this  it  was  formerly  the  custom  with 
both  sexes  to  wear  a  belt  supporting 
a  band  made  of  banana  fibres  gaily 
coloured  which  passed  between  the 
legs.  Among  the  inhabitants  of 
Kushai  this  formed  the  only  clothing. 
This  product  of  Caroline  industry 
was  woven  on  a  machine  in  which 
the  weft  was  contrived  by  a  laborious 
knotting  together  of  various  coloured 
threads,  while  partly  the  same  threads, 
partly  also  red  woollen  yarn,  were 
employed  for  the  warp.  On  the 
Mortlock  and  Ruk  Islands  broader 
girdles  of  i  5  to  25  strings  were  worn, 
with  little  disks  of  nutshell  arranged 
on  them.  According  to  Kubary's 
reckoning,  not  less  than  12,500  of 
these  were  required  for  a  girdle  of 
twenty  strings,  so  that  among  these 
islanders  the  girdle  is  among  the 
most  highly-prized  articles  of  clothing. 


Combs  from  Tonga — one-fourth  real  size.     (British  Museum.) 


Bone  comb  from  New  Zealand — one-third  real  size. 
(British  Museum.) 


Equally  valuable  used  to  be  the  girdles  made  only  to  order  by  the  people  of 
Pelew,  from  opercula  of  a  rare  tridacna  shell,  and  the  chains  known  as  klilt, 
made  of  sixty-four  tortoiseshell  plates. 

While  the  men  have  often  remained  faithful  to  tradition,  the  dress  of  the 
women  has  been  altered  much  more  owing  to  the  intercourse  with  white  people. 
They  wear  coloured  cotton  pocket-handkerchiefs  both  round  the  waist  and  also 
poncho-wise  over  breast  and  shoulders.  The  stuffs  made  of  strips  of  palm  leaf 
and  bast  have  almost  disappeared. 


204 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


The  weapons  and  utensils  of  the  Polynesians  are  remarkably  varied  and 
abundant ;  but  among  the  Melanesians  we  meet  with  a  still  more  copious  display 
of  inventiveness  and  artistic  ingenuity.  The  absence  of  iron  is  especially  noticeable. 
When  Europeans  first  came  into  contact  with  Polynesians,  they  found  them 
compelled  to  make  up  for  the  want  of  metals  by  using  stones,  bones,  and  shells. 
Few  of  the  Polynesian  islands  possess  metallic  ores.  On  the  coral  islands  this 
might  be  expected,  but  it  is  also  true  in  most  cases  of  the  volcanic  formations. 


Man  of  the  Ruk  Islands.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album. ) 

But  the  level  of  culture  among  these  races  is  such  as  to  make  us  believe  that  if 
they  had  discovered  the  raw  material  they  would  have  advanced  to  the  use  of  the 
metals.  With  stone,  bones,  teeth,  wood,  they  have  achieved  all  that  was  possible. 
The  implements  of  navigation  and  fishery,  the  boats  and  hooks,  are  perfect  of 
their  kind,  and  show  evidence  not  only  of  cleverness  but  of  the  inventive  faculty. 
Unlike  the  Australians  and  Bushmen,  as  soon  as  they  get  iron  they  know  what  to 
do  with  it.  Naturally,  iron  was  also  converted  to  purposes  of  ornament ;  and  as 
the  value  of  glass  beads  had  already  dropped  considerably,  iron  ware  of  all  kinds 


Coco  and  Sago  Palms. 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 


207 


remained  the  leading  article  of  European  trade.  They  made  it  available  at  first 
in  the  forms  to  which  they  had  long  been  accustomed,  putting  pieces  of  iron  hoop 
into  their  axes  in  place  of  Tridacna  shells,  as  shown  in  the  cut  on  p.  208,  but 
retaining  in  other  respects  the  customary  form  of  the  implement.  On  Ponapd, 
where  we  can  date  the  end  of  the  Stone  Age  about  the  beginning  of  the  twenties 
of  the  present  century,  iron  blades  were  still  always  fixed  in  the  lemon-wood 
handles  as  the  stone  had  been  ;  but  the  old  stone  ones  were  kept,  as  sacred  relics, 
in  the  most  secret  corners  of  the  house. 

For  all  heavy  implements,  especially  hammers,  adzes,  and  axes,  stone  was  the 
most  valuable  material.    It  was  less  so  for  spears,  and  stone  arrowheads  were  never  in 


Obsidian  axes  from  E^ter  Island — one-third  real  size.      (British  Museum. ) 

use.  In  Polynesian  and  Melanesian  stone-axes  we  are  struck  at  once  by  the  fact  of 
their  not  being  perforated,  and  by  the  rudimentary  workmanship  of  the  outline, 
though  careful  rounding  and  polishing  are  not  unknown.  Even  with  the  choicest 
material  and  the  most  careful  workmanship  these  axes  do  not  go  far  beyond  the 
simple  wedge  ;  and  thus  we  seldom  find  them  ground  either  hollow  in  the  neck  for 
attachment,  or  to  a  curve  in  the  sides.  The  simplest  on  the  whole  are  the  New 
Zealand  axes  or  adzes ;  often  plain  rectangles,  with  the  edge  ground  not  in  a  curve, 
but  angular.  Even  in  the  very  large  and  handsome  axes  from  Hawaii  the  cutting 
is  rough  so  far  as  the  rows  of  string  which  fasten  the  head  to  the  handle  extend. 
But  the  rudest  of  all  are  the  hatchets  of  the  Easter  Islanders,  resembling  rather 
knives,  "  knapped  "  from  obsidian  or  lava,  very  broad  in  the  blade  and  short  in 
the  handle.  The  axes  of  New  Guinea  and  the  neighbouring  islands  are  often  not 
inferior  to  these  in  size,  but  are  more  rounded  ;  being  fastened  not  on  but 
into  the  handle.  The  Hawaiian  axes,  8  to  16  inches  long  in  the  blade,  are 
in  size  and  shape  more  like  those  of  New  Zealand,  but  are  flattened  off  where 
they  are  laid  against  the  helve.  Long,  narrow,  chisel-like  stone  blades  are  also 
found  in  this  region  ;  while  the  large  ornamental  axes  of  the  Hervey  Islands  have 
thin  blades  of  basalt  of  a  spade-shape,  often  somewhat  curved.  The  fitting  of  the 
axe  was  everywhere  essentially  similar.     Those  which  Cook  brought  from  Tahiti 


2o8 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


consisted  of  a  wooden  handle  with  an  appendage  like  a  heel  projecting  behind  ;  the 
stone-axe,  flat  above  and  two-edged  underneath,  is  attached  to  the  front  part,  which 


^New  7r,lH  '-T^fw"".  Hawan-one-sixth  real  size.     ..  Adze  with  carved  helve,  probably  from 

^Zr^lTLj'^'^\     f,     i'     °'^  the  Marquesas  and  Society  Islai>ds-one-sixth  real  size.     5.  Obsidian 
fo,mh  re,1  str  f  I='and-oi>e-third  real  size.     6.  Pair  of  compasses  from  the  Society  Islands-one- 

fourth  real  size,     (i,  3,  4,  6,  Christy  Collection  ;  ..,  5,  British  Museum. ) 

falls  away  at  a  slant,  by  means  of  a  string  which  is  first  wound  round  the  handle, 
then  crosswise  over  the  blade  and  the  projection.     Much  care  is  devoted  to  the 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 


209 


winding  of  this  string,  notably  by  the 
Hervey  Islanders  ;  though,  except  in 
the  case  of  ornamental  axes,  the  handle 
is  not  much  smoothed.  Of  Micro- 
nesian  axes  the  greater  number  have 
blades  of  shell,  chiefly  from  Terebra 
maadata  and  Tridacna  gigas  ■  the 
broad  back-bones  of  tortoises  are  also 
used.  Curiously  enough  the  Micro- 
nesians,  as  on  Ponap6,  overlooked 
their  admirably  adapted  stone,  never 
getting  beyond  shells.  In  the  Marshall 
Islands  the  adze  with  semicircular 
shell-blade  was  preferred  to  the  iron 
adze  for  hollowing  out  canoes.  The 
polishing  of  the  blade  with  sand  or 
pumice  is  the  task  of  the  old  men. 

Thrusting-spears  seem  to  have 
been  formerly  regarded  by  the  Poly- 
nesians as  their  chief  weapon.  They 
were  sometimes  made  of  wood  with 
the  point  hardened  in  the  fire  ;  som,e- 
times  strengthened  with  stone  blades, 
the  tail-spine  of  the  sting-ray,  splin- 
ters of  bone,  or  sharks'  teeth.  For 
a  long  time  they  were  twice  the 
height  of  a  man  ;  where  casuarina 
wood  was  lacking  coco-palm  was 
used.  Spears  were  given  away  with 
great  reluctance  ;  they  were  wrought 
and  adorned  and  ornamented  with 
special  care.  Spears  were  equally  the 
chief  weapons  of  the  Micronesians  ; 
they  were  armed  with  barbs  made  of 
sting -ray  spines,  human  bones,  the 
snout  of  the  garfish,  or  sharks'  teeth, 
but  they  are  never  so  artistic  as  in 
Melanesia.  These  weapons  serve  for 
thrusting  at  close  quarters :  shorter 
spears  sharpened  at  both  ends  were 
used  for  throwing ;  a  spear  thrower 
of  bamboo  is  recorded  from  Pelew. 
Purely  wood  weapons  include  the 
sword  of  the  Pelew  Islanders,  and 
the  pahu,  or  dagger  of  hard  wood,  in 
Yap  of  reed,  20  inches  or  rather 
more  in  length,  spatula-shaped  in  the 
handle,  and  gradually  tapering,  thence 


Maori  chiefs  insignia  and  sceptres — one-eighth  real  size. 
(Christy  Collection. ) 

P 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


carried  in  a  sheath  of  vegetable  fibres ;  angular  stone  blades  from  8  to  1 6  inches 
long  afforded  ponderous  hand  weapons. 

Next   to   the   spear    the    chief   weapon   is  the    club,    generally   made    from 

heavy    iron -wood        ^f^ 


Its 
ornamentation  makes  it 
an  interesting  produc- 
tion of  Polynesian  art. 
It  formed  the  main 
strength  of  the  Tongans, 
the  most  beautifully  exe- 
cuted type  being  the 
paddle  shape,  which  ap- 
pears to  have  become 
obsolete  even  in  Cook's 
time,  round  in  the  handle, 
flattened  above,  often 
brought  into  a  four- 
cornered  shape  by  the 
strong  accentuation  of 
the  middle  rib,  and  either 
cut  off  square  at  the  end 
or  running  out  in  an 
elliptical  point.  The 
whole  club  from  the 
handle  to  the  point  is 
covered  with  carving, 
which  either  passes 
round  in  one  spiral 
band,  or  forms  a  series 
of  chequers  divided  by 
the  side  edges  and  the 
middle  ribs,  or  else  laid 
over  and  over  each  other 
in  simple  cross  bands. 
The  ornaments  consist 
of  straight  or  zig-zag 
lines  drawn  close  to- 
gether, a  roughly  indi- 
cated human  form  being 
nearly    always    present. 


'  li^aiiy        diWctya        piCSCilL. 

'■■   '^f^^'^.  ^"^^  ^"°*'  ^^''i  '°  '°^  ^''°'"  'he  Society  Islands— one-eighth  real  size    Stars  and  CrescentS  often 
(Christy   Collection.)      2.    W^ooden    djurirpi-   fmm    m«,.,    v„„i j       ...._ 


(Christy   Collection^)      2     Wooden    dagger   from   New 'zealand^'two-  aooear  aq  wpIi"  pTfimVrpq 

sevenths  real  size  (British  Museum).     3.  Spear  set  with  sharks'  teeth    from  ^PP^^'^'  ^^  ^Cll  aS  tlgUrCS 

the   Gilbert    Islands  —  one  -  fifteenth   real   size   (Munich    Ethnographical  of    fisheS    and    tOrtoiseS. 

Museum).     4.   Saw,  said  to  be  used  also  as  dagger,  of  ray-spine   from  TU  1  11.. 

Pelew— one-third  real  size  (Berlin  Museum).  ^  "^7     ^^Ve    a    shauk    tO 

,,  ...  ,    ,  ,  hang  them  up  by.  Beside 

these  richly  carved  clubs  smooth  ones  are  also  found  quite  flat,  paddle-shaped  with 
a  ring  below  the  blade,  and  others  of  a  simple  mallet-shape  with  short  handle. 
-Paddles  of  honour"  is  a  name  given  to  paddle-shaped  objects  6  feet  long  and 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS 


211 


more,  either  carved  in  cross  bands  like  the  clubs,  or  sculptured  in  a  fashion  which 
reminds  one  of  elegantly  chipped  flint  instruments.     The  Marquesas    Islanders 


I 


I.  Wooden  swords  from  Pelew  and  Hawaii— one-fifth  real  size  (British  Museum).  2.  Bow  and  arrow  from  the 
Friendly  Islands— one-third  real  size  (Christy  Collection).  3.  Saw  of  ray-spine,  said  to  be  from  Pelew— 
one-third  real  size  (British  Museum.)     4.   Bone  spear-head— real  size  (Christy  Collection). 

are  distinguished  in  the  manufacture  of  these  beautiful  clubs  ;  the  blade  of  their 
paddle-shaped  clubs,  like  almost  every  production  of  their  artistic  dexterity,  con- 
tains a  fantastically    executed    human    countenance.      But    the    most    beautiful 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Hawaiian  wicker-w  ork  helmet — one  fourth  real  size. 
(Berlin  Museum. ) 


paddle -shaped  clubs  were  certainly 
made  by  the  Hervey  Islanders,  who  ex- 
aggerated the  delicate  cell-carving  of 
the  Tongans  to  the  verge  of  the  finikin. 
The  Tahitians  and  the  most  closely 
allied  tribes  devoted  much  trouble  to 
the  polishing  of  their  weapons. 

The  axes  of  the  Hervey  Islanders 
with  perforated  handles,  or  the  over- 
elegant  clubs  of  the  Tongans,  were 
obviously  designed  in  the  first  in- 
stance as  insignia  of  rank,  and  can 
only  exceptionally  have  been  used 
in  fighting.  The  ceremonial  axes  of 
Rarotonga  and  Tahiti  may  also  have 
been  originally  to  some  extent  in  use, 
and  have  been,  with  their  symbolically 
worked  handles,  preserved  after  the 
owner's  death  as  a  memorial.     Spears 

also    were    converted    into    tokens   of   rank ;    among    these    the    New    Zealand 

sceptres   of  honour  were 

conspicuous     for     length 

and     decoration.       They 

vary    in    shape    between 

staff     and      paddle,     the 

simplest  being  cylindrical 

staves  with  jagged  longi- 
tudinal lines.     They  end 

in  a  more  or  less  compli- 
cated knob,  in  the  spirals 

and   twists  of  which  may 

always  be  detected  eyes, 

or  even  a  human   figure. 

Axes,      pipes,      daggers, 

flutes,    are    often    in     no 

way  inferior  in  ornament- 
ation to  these  decorative 

objects,     and     yet     they 

must   have    been    in    use. 

They     show      how     the 

whole  life  and  action  of 

Polynesia  was  imbued  in 

a  dignified  manner  with 

religious  images,  symbols, 

and  ceremonies.      In  the 

way    of    tools    we     find 

sharks'    teeth    set    in     a 

J  u       J 1  •         Small  weapons  with  sharks'  teeth  from  Tonga,  dagger  and  baler  from  Hawaii, 

WOOaen       nanale     servmg  and  gourd  bottle  from  New  Caledonia.     {Vienna  Museum. ) 


THE  POLYNESIANS  AND  MICRONESIANS  313 

for  graving  tools,  also  wooden  bows  with  similar  teeth  at  both  ends  for  use  in 
drawing  circles. 

Small  weapons  of  sharks'  teeth,  intended  for  the  cutting  up  of  prisoners, 
served  to  gratify  the  horrible  passion  for  torture ;  and  were  also  employed  in 
the  self-lacerations  practised  by  mourners  in  token  of  their  grief.  Perhaps  we 
should  reckon  among  these  the  implement  made  of  the  sting  of  a  ray,  shown  in 
the  illustration  on  p.  210,  equally  available  as  file  or  dagger.  Weapons  of  sharks' 
teeth  reached  a  fine  development  in  the  Society  Islands  and  in  Hawaii.  The 
kind  of  forked  sword  made  from  a  three-or-four-forked  bough  of  casuarina,  and 
set  with  these  teeth,  was  regarded  as  the  most  terrible  weapon.  The  Berlin 
Museum  possesses  a  club  from  Yap,  made  of  the  bones  of  the  whale,  and  set 
with  rays'  spines.  The  population  of  the  Gilbert  or  Kingsmill  Islands,  by  con- 
sistent progress  in  this  particular  direction,  acquired  a  peculiar  style  in  the 
manufacture  of  weapons,  demanding  both  industry  and  dexterity.  One  might 
suppose  they  were  a  powerful  race  living  in  a  constant  state  of  war.  The  fitting 
of  their  weapons  with  sharks'  teeth,  which  were  fastened  on  with  strings  of  coco-nut 
fibre  twisted  with  human  hair,  appears  like  a  further  development  of  the  weapon 
found  among  the  Malays,  consisting  of  the  saw  of  the  saw-fish.  The  necessary 
counterpart  to  this  weapon-making  skill  is  the  armour.  Closely  plaited  of  string, 
coarse  and  thick,  this  must  have  been  painfully  heavy  to  wear,  but  was  necessary 
if  only  to  weaken  the  moral  effect  of  the  sharks'  teeth.  A  helmet  made  from  the 
prickly  skin  of  the  Diodon  or  porcupine  fish  completed  this  original  equipment. 

Bows  and  arrows  were  in  Cook's  time  used  only  for  hunting  or  in  sport ;  and 
now  they  hardly  exist  in  Micronesia  and  Polynesia.  The  bow  of  the  Friendly 
Islands,  which  was  only  used  to  shoot  rats,  is  yet  a  very  fine  weapon.  It  is  as 
high  as  a  man,  beautifully  made  of  polished  firm  wood,  and  fitted  with  a  strong 
twisted  string ;  but  its  companion  the  quiver  has  quite  disappeared,  and  the 
number  of  arrows  is  reduced  to  one.  The  Pelew  natives  use,  for  pigeon-shooting, 
bows  of  mangrove  wood  with  a  string  of  fibre.  In  New  Zealand,  language 
indicates  a  former  acquaintance  with  the  weapon. 

In  the  Gilbert  Islands,  Paumotu,  and  Easter  Island,  bows  are  entirely  absent ; 
and  in  the  Hawaiian  group  they  appear  to  have  been  re-introduced  only  in  the 
course  of  the  present  century.  It  is,  however,  incorrect  to  say  that,  owing  to 
the  gradual  cessation  of  hunting  in  these  islands  with  few  animals,  weapons  of 
long  range  held  no  place  in  Polynesian  strategy.  Next  t>o  the  spear  and  the 
javelin  the  sling  is  the  most  frequent  Micronesian  weapon  ;  slings  of  plaited 
twine,  like  those  of  Melanesia,  are  known  in  the  Mortlock  and  Caroline  Islands. 
Next  to  them  come  short  thro  wing-clubs.  In  the  Marquesas  the  sling  made  of 
coco-nut  fibre,  throwing  stones,  polished  or  angular,  as  big  as  hen's  eggs,  is  among 
the  most  dreaded  weapons.  Clever  slingers  were  in  high  esteem,  and  formed  a 
special  troop  in  the  Tahitian  army.  At  favourable  moments  they  would  advance 
beyond  the  mass  of  the  host,  and  let  fly  at  the  enemy  with  loud  shouts. 

In  many  parts  of  Polynesia  the  variety  of  offensive  weapons  diverted  attention 
from  any  care  for  defensive  armour  and  other  means  of  protection  ;  battles  had 
a  ceremonial  character,  and  the  object  of  weapons  was  to  make  a  warrior  seem 
prouder  and  more  terrible.  Unfortunately  we  have  no  accurate  description  of 
the  Tahitian  equipment.  The  greatest  value  was  attached  to  the  head-dress. 
Among   the    Hawaiians   this   was   an    elegant   helmet   of  feather -work  ;   among 


214  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

the  tribes  of  the  Austral  Islands,  of  a  fantastic  shape.  To  attack  the  wearer  of 
a  conspicuous  head  adornment  was  reckoned  a  heroic  action ;  his  fall  often 
decided  the  engagement.  Another  article  of  Tahitian  uniform  was  a  collar, 
decked  with  feathers  and  shells,  which  served  as  a  breastplate.  Parkinson  saw 
Gilbert  Islanders  ready  for  fight,  with  the  hard  dried  skin  of  a  ray  wrapped 
round  breast  and  belly  under  their  coco-fibre  armour,  and  on  the  top  of  all  as 
much  cordage  as  could  be  got  on.  They  themselves,  with  their  ray-spined  spear 
20  feet  long,  did  not  advance,  but  only  stimulated  the  fighters.  In  Tongatabu, 
Forster  found  a  large  flat  breastplate  made  of  a  round  bone,  probably  that  of 
some  kind  of  whale  ;  it  was  20  inches  in  diameter  and  beautifully  polished.  The 
Marquesan  adornment  of  the  same  kind  consists  of  pieces  of  a  light  cork-like 
wood,  tied  into  a  half-ring,  fastened  with  resin,  and  set  with  red  a&rus-heans. 
Among  poorer  races  this  breastplate  seems  to  be  replaced  by  a  shell.  In  the 
flat  shell,  often  ground  to  a  tooth-shape,  which  many  Polynesians  wear  hanging 
on  their  breasts,  we  may  perhaps  recognise  a  reduced  form  of  this. 


§  s.  THE  NEGROID  RACES  OF  TPIE  PACIFIC  AND 
INDIAN  OCEANS 

Distribution — Traces  of  an  earlier  more  extensive  distribution  in  tlie  Indian  Ocean^Colour ;  Skull ;  Hair ; 
Bodily  build ;  Resemblance  to  Negroes— Alleged  race  of  Dwarfs— Relation  of  Papuas  and  Negritos- 
Misunderstanding  of  the  name  Alfurs — Character  and  mental  qualities  of  the  Melanesian  population. 

Crossing  the  eastern  boundary  of  Melanesia,  we  at  once  come  in  the  Fiji 
Islands  across  a  plainly  negroid  race,  the  traces  of  which  to  the  eastv/ard  we  have 
already  mentioned  (see  p.  147  sqq.).  Beyond  the  region  defined  as  Melanesia,  it  is 
found  in  the  interior  of  India  and  Ceylon.  In  the  Malay  Archipelago  it  extends 
westward  as  far  as  Timor  ;  when  we  get  to  Lombok  we  find  Malays.  To  one 
particular  group,  the  Negritos,  may  be  with  much  probability  assigned  an  extension 
to  east  and  north  formerly  much  wider.  The  inhabitants  of  the  interior  of  the 
Philippines,  who  live  in  a  state  of  warfare  with  the  Malays  who  invade  the  coast 
districts,  belong  to  this  group.  The  Aborigines  of  the  Andamans  are  nearly  akin, 
and  some  profess  to  point  to  traces  of  the  race  in  the  Mariannes  and  in  Micronesia. 
Qurtrefages  found  his  so-called  "Mincopie-Type  "even  in  the  Japanese  skull,  though 
in  an  attenuated  form.  Remains  of  negroid  tribes  are  also  said  to  be  known  in 
the  interior  of  Malacca  and  in  India.  This  dispersed  and  fragmentary  occurrence 
of  the  dark  element  has  suggested  to  many  observers  the  view  that  we  should  see 
therein  an  earlier  population  of  these  and  neighbouring  regions,  for  which  the 
continent  of  Southern  Asia  formed  a  bridge  between  the  Indo-Pacific  •  and  the 
African  domains  of  the  Negro.  Upon  this  the  lighter  men  were  superimposed  in  a 
broad  layer,  leading  on  the  mainland  to  every  possible  degree  of  crossing.  Here 
also  we  must  guard  against  any  cut-and-dried  notions  with  respect  to  the  relations 
of  ever-shifting  races.  The  Papuas  made  forays  against  Asia,  and  came  in  great 
numbers  as  slaves  to  Ceram  and  the  Eastern  part  of  the  Malay  Archipelago.  In 
this  way  we  may  explain  in  some  measure  those  races  not  woolly-haired,  but  crisp  or 
curly-haired,  which,  starting  from  Ceram,  have  made  their  way  among  the  straight- 
haired  population.     The  name  Alfuros  or  Alfurs  has  nothing  to  do  with  these 


(i-3)  Necklaces  of  shell  and  beans,  with  limpet-shells.  (4  and  5)  Ear-pendants,  with  dolphin's  teeth.  (6  and  7) 
Ear-buttons  of  whale's  tooth.  (8)  Necklace  of  tortoise-shell.  (9)  Neck  ornament.  (10)  Necklace.  (11) 
Wooden  fillet  for  the  head.  (12)  Ear-button  made  of  a  ray's  vertebra.  (13,  14)  Armlets  of  black  wood  and 
whale's  tooth.  (15)  Neck  ornament.  (16)  Necklace  of  shell-disks  and  whale's  tooth.  (1-7,  Marquesas  ; 
8  and  15,  Friendly  Islands;  9,  Hervey  Islands;  10,  11,  Society  Islands;  12,  Easter  Island;  13,  14, 
Hawaii;  16,  Nukuor.) 


THE  NEGROID  RACES  OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND  INDIAN  OCEANS       215 


Papua-like  and  Negrito-like  elements.  Thus,  without  speaking  of  the  dark  races 
everywhere  as  a  primitive  population,  we  may  at  least  denote  them  as  probably 
the  older. 

In  the  colour  of  the  skin  dark  tints  prevail  without  quite  reaching  the  depth  of 
much  Negro  colouring.  The  nearest  to  this,  perhaps,  is  the  colour  of  many 
Solomon  Islanders  ;  manifold  admixtures  of  lighter  elements  are  the  cause  of  the 
frequency  of  various  shading.  In  Western  Fiji,  in  the  New  Hebrides,  Malicollo, 
and  New  Britain,  the  dolichocephalic  form  of  skull  prevails.  The  dark  crisp-haired 
population  of  negroid  exterior  in  the  Malayan  Archipelago  and  New  Guinea 
are  said  to  be  brachycephalic,  as  are  the  so-called  Mincopies  of  the  Andamans. 
According  to  Krauser  the  Fijian  skull  is  highly  prognathous.  At  one  time  it  was 
alleged  that  their  hair  grew  in  tufts,  in  which  it  was  sought  to  find  a  distinction 
from  the  African  Negro  ;  now  it  has  been  discovered  that  the  hair  is  distributed 
pretty  evenly  over  the  scalp,  and  only  assumes  the  tufted  appearance  when  it 


New  Guinea  girl.     (From  a  Photograph  in  the  possession  of  Herr  W.  Joost,  Berlin.) 

becomes  long.  Individual  hairs  are  coarse,  wiry,  and  of  elliptical  section  ;  on  the 
face  and  body  the  hair  seems  to  be  stronger  than  in  Negroes. 

The  frequent  occurrence  of  small  individuals  is  a  curious  feature  in  the  negroid 
population  of  the  Indo-Malayan  region.  In  many  tribes  they  form  a  decided 
majority,  and  are  clearly  distinguished  from  the  others.  The  average  height  of 
the  Papuas  of  New  Guinea  and  the  neighbouring  islands  is  between  5  feet  5  inches 
and  5  feet  8  inches.  The  Fijians  even,  especially  in  the  upper  classes,  are  often 
taller  than  the  whites  ;  on  the  other  hand,  for  the  Andaman  Islanders  the  standard 
is  from  4  feet  6  inches  to  5  feet ;  for  the  Negritos  the  average  is  5  feet.  The 
measurement  among  the  Kanjhars  of  South  India  is  for  men  5  feet  i  inch  to 
S  feet  3  inches  ;  the  Veddahs  of  Ceylon  4  feet  9  inches  to  4  feet  1 1  inches  ;  the 
Paliars  of  Travancore  about  S  feet  3  inches  ;  the  Kardars  of  the  Anamalai 
mountains  from  $  feet  i  inch  to  5  feet  5  inches. 

The  resemblance  to  Negroes  which  predominates  in  the  total  of  the  phenomena 


:i6  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


is  constanth-  being  insisted  on ;  260  years  ago  Tasman  expressed  it  by  sajing 
that  they  only  differed  from  Kciffirs  in  having  less  woolly  hair.  Observers  like 
Finsch  and  D'Albertis  take  every  opportunitj-  of  rejecting  the  notion  of  a  special 
Papuan  race  ;  the  prevailing  type  of  the  Melanesiaiis  is  only  a  slight  variation, 
recognisable  by  the  greater  abundance  of  hair  on  the  face  and  body,  and  by 
peculiarities  in  the  features.  In  the  larger  archipelagos  the  natives  displaj-  various 
departures  from  the  tj-pe  which  may  be  referred  partly  to  ]\Ialayo-Polynesian 
crossing,  partly  to  the  influence  of  their  surroundings.  Not  to  mention  Fiji,  with 
its  patchwork  of  races,  the  New  Hebrides  unfold  before  us  a  real  book  of  patterns. 
On  the  Southern  Islands  the  inhabitants  are  better  developed  than  in  the  north  ; 
on  Tanna  they  are  handsomer,  bolder,  and  of  finer  character  than  elsewhere ;  on 
Api  they  are  lean,  ugly,  and  very  tall  ;  on  Erromango  they  are  very  short.  Even 
in  maps  of  the  sixteenth  century  there  appear  off  the  coast  of  New  Guinea  Islas 
de  Mala  Gente  side  by  side  with  Islas  de  Honibres  Blancos.  Thus  it  is  impossible 
to  speak  of  a  geographical  division  of  these  dark  races  into  one  group  of  eastern 
dolichocephalic  Papuas  and  one  of  western  brachycephalic  Xeg^tos,  for  the 
conditions  under  which  the  latter  dwell  are  even  less  favourable  to  the  production 
of  unalloyed  characteristics. 

With  their  widespread  distribution  we  shall  expect  to  find  them  dividing  up 
into  sub-races.  Here  we  are  justified  in  inquiring  into  the  relation  which  they 
hold  towards  the  Australians.  Certain  points  of  agreement  are  obvious — 
dark  skins,  pronounced  hairiness,  beards  ;  besides  this  we  have  relationship  of 
language.  We  maj-  admit  the  variet}-  of  the  Australian  race,  and  that 
Australia  has  probabl}'  been  invaded  by  elements  from  New  Guinea  and 
Polynesia.      It  is  not  the  case  that  the  woolly-haired  Australians   are  confined  to 

the  north  or  north-east ;  there  are  many  Austra- 
lians who  come  nearer  than  the  Papuas  to  the 
mi.xed  Polynesian  breed.  Independently  of  the 
differences  and  transitions  called  into  existence  by 
Polynesian  immigration,  leanness  of  the  arms  and 
legs,  bad  proportions,  an  ill-nourished  condition, 
are  noticed  as  approximations  to  the  Australian 
t}-pe.  Besides  this  we  find  also  physiognomies 
reminding  us  of  Indians,  Jews,  or  Europeans. 

Great  confusion  has  arisen  from  the  application 
of  the  name  Negritos,  especially  to  the  inhabitants 
of   the    Philippines,    a    mixed    dark    race    with 
straight  hair.     One  view  with  regard   to    these 
^  -__  Negritos  may  be  summarised  in  the   statement 

Man  of  N>«-  TrPi=.nH     /p       .u  ^  J  ^      '^^^^  ^'^^y  ^""^  ^^'^  the  most  part  brown  men,  with 

Man  ot  .New  Ireland.     (From  the  Godefiroy    „,  1       /     u  ,,    , 

Album.)  curly  (seldom   woolly)  or  even   straight  hair — a 

race  of  the  mountains,  the  forests,  and  the  chase 
and  departing  from  the  Malayan  race-type  in  respect  more  of  their  social  and 
geographical  position  than  of  any  anthropological  marks.i  When  the  Spaniards 
came  to  the  Philippines  they  found  Malays  on  the  coast,  Tagals  more  inland; 
and  in  the  mountains,  the  Aetas,  ^\  ho  were  driven    back  and   decaying.     Con- 


THE  NEGROID  RACES  OF   THE  PACIFIC  AND  INDIAN  OCEANS      217 


sidering  the  wide  diffusion  of  Negroid  elements,  it  is  not  astonishing  if  they  have 
mingled  in  this  socially  inferior  group  of  races ;  they  arc  found  also  in  other 
regions  in  which  both  Malayoid  and  Negroid  elements  are  included.  The  darker 
population  in  the  cast  of  the  Malay  Archipelago  at  least  reminds  us,  in  a  certain 
hybrid  character,  of  the  Negritos,  as  found  in  Hahnaliera  or  Gilolo,  and  the 
interior  of  Great  Nicobar.  In  the  Malay  Peninsula  the  Negroid  element  reappears 
more  clearly.  On  other  islands  of  this  region,  too,  we  meet  with  a  race, 
swarthier  than  the  other  inhabitants,  slim  and  tall,  with  woolly  or  crisp  hair, 
living  in  the  mountain  districts  of  the  interior.  They  were  known  as  Harafara 
or  Alfurs.  But  if  the  distinctions  between  the  tribes  who  have  been  driven  back 
into  the  interior  and  those  who  live  on  the  coast  are  often,  even  in  small  islands, 
as  great  as  those  between 
Bushmen  and  Hottentots, 
the  effects  of  social  and 
political  distinctions  take 
precedence  of  distinction  of 
race.  The  Orang  Panggang 
and  Orang  Scmang  in  the 
interior  of  Malacca  are  de- 
scribed as  little  men,  mostly 
dark,  with  crisp  hair.  Maclay 
compares  them  with  the 
Negritos  of  the  Philii)pines, 
and  speaks  of  "  men  of  pure 
Melanesian  blood  among 
them." 

A  claim  to  form  a  group 
by  themselves  is  made  also 
by  the  small  races  diverging 
in  many  respects  from  the 
Papuan  type,  who  live  in  the 
western  part  of  this  area  of 
diffusion.  The  Andamanese 
may  pass  as  their  typical 
form.  The  face  has  a  bene- 
volent, gentle  expression  ;  the  forehead  is  arched  ;  the  eyes  are  round,  and  set 
horizontally  ;  the  nose  is  small  and  straight ;  the  lips  not  strikingly  prominent. 

In  India  dark  men  are  numerous,  extending  far  to  the  north.  The  assumption 
that  we  have  here  to  do  with  a  great  racial  struggle  in  former  times  has  been 
strengthened  by  the  poetical  exaggerations  of  tradition,  which  draws  a  sharp 
contrast  between  the  combatant  races,  as  black  and  white  ;  deriding  the  flat  and  nose- 
less countenances  of  the  dark  foe  ;  and  even  depicting  them  as  apes.  But  thorough 
research  has  always  tended  to  lighten  the  dark  colour  of  this  race,  and  raise  their 
level  of  culture.  Indeed,  the  important  and  talented  race  called  Tamils  belong 
to  this  group.  Some  have  thought  fit  to  reckon  the  blended  little  race  known  as 
the  Veddahs  of  Ceylon  among  the  most  degraded  of  the  earth  ;  but  the  more 
evidence  comes  to  hand,  the  clearer  it  becomes  that  they  are  not  even  so  dark 
as  many  Tamils  ;  that,  as  regards  the  face,  the  distinction  is  small  between  them 


Fijian  lady.     ( From  Godeffroy  Album. ) 


2l8 


THE    HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


and  the  highly-civilized  Cingalese ;  that  their  hair  is  not  at  all  the  woolly  hair  of 
the  Negro  ;  and  that  their  language  is  an  Indian  dialect  full  of  Sanscrit  words,  and 
alloyed  with  Dra vidian  elements. 

Must  we  then  perhaps  look  for  the  real  negro  element  in  the  small  crisp- 
haired  men  or  black  dwarfs 
who  are  said  to  live  in  trees 
in  the  Athrumalli  mountains 
of  South  India?  Jagor  has 
drawn  these  tree  dwellings 
(see  p.  1 08),  but  they  only 
serve  as  places  of  refuge, 
otherwise  these  ill  -  famed 
people  live  in  regular  villages. 
If  in  the  descriptions  of  them 
it  has  been  again  and  again 
pointed  out  that  they  live  on 
products  of  the  jungle,  eat 
mice,  dwell  among  the 
branches,  worship  demons ; 
nevertheless  social  debase- 
ment and  anthropological 
degradation  remain  quite 
distinct  things,  and  if  the 
Kaders,  the  Nairs,  and  other 
mountain  tribes  of  South 
India  are  depicted  as  thick- 
lipped  dwarfs,  the  example 
of  the  Veddahs  shows  us  how 
much  these  random  descrip- 
tions can  be  depended  on. 
Even  the  fact  that  some  of  these  tribes  file  their  teeth  to  a  point,  while 
others  live  in  polyandry,  and  observe  the  Tamil  custom  of  inheritance  through 
the  mother,  or  that  men  and  youths  live  separately  in  one  great  house,  need  not 
give  them  any  lower  a  place  in  our  eyes.  Traces  of  these  customs  run  through 
all  mankind,  even  the  traces  of  cannibalism  in  the  mountain  tribes  of  Assam  are 
not  astonishing.  A  more  important  fact  is  that  some  of  them  have  used  stone 
weapons  and  utensils  even  to  our  own  time,  and  in  connection  with  this  we 
remember  that  traces  of  the  Stone  Age,  probably  recent,  are  found  in  the  whole 
region  of  the  eastern  Indian  ocean,  where  iron  now  has  the  upper  hand.  Some 
of  the  dark  races  of  India  have  quite  recently  made  advances  which  are  still 
compatible  with  relics  of  their  former  savage  forest  life.  The  Santals  of  Lower 
Bengal  have  not  only  learnt  to  till  the  ground,  but  have  adopted  the  plough,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  century  have  from  hunters  and  brigands  become  a  peaceful 
people  of  more  than  a  million  souls.  The  Khonds,  who  dwell  farther  to  the 
south,  no  doubt  carry  on  their  agriculture  still  in  a  semi-nomadic  fashion,  some 
communities  migrating  every  fourteen  years  ;  but  they  have  become  peaceable 
and  have  abandoned  their  human  sacrifices.  The  46  million  Dravidians  of 
South  India  include,  beside  some  poor  nomadic  tribes,  a  great  majority  of  races 


Fijian  gentleman.      (From  Godeffroy  Album. ) 


THE  NEGROID  RACES   OF   THE  PACIFIC  AND  INDIAN  OCEANS      219 


who  may  bo  reckoned  as  props  of  Indian  civilization  in  the  same  sense  as  the 
Aryans. 

The  difference  between  the  Melanesian  character  and  the  Polynesian  has  often 
been  noted.  It  lies  essentially  on  the  Negro  side.  Their  bodily  resemblance  is 
paralleled  by  a  mental  one.  The  Melanesian  is  more  impulsive,  more  frank, 
noisier,  and  more  violent  than  the  Polynesian.  In  cases  where  he  appears  in 
less  favourable  light,  the  key  to  many  contradictions  is  to  be  found  in  a  pride 
which  at  one  moment  is  elated,  and  at  the  next  has  a  keen  scent  for  anything 
like  injury.     Those  who  know  the  Fijians  best  depict  them  as  the  vainest  of  all 

men.       A     casual    utterance    will    cause    a  

woman  to  sit  down  in  the  public  place 
of  a  village,  shed  tears  without  end,  and  fill 
the  air  with  lamentations  and  a  flood  of 
scolding  and  threatening  language.  The 
cry  will  be  heard  from  the  top  of  a  hill, 
"  War,  war !  will  no  man  kill  me  that  I  may 
go  to  the  shade  of  my  father?"  All  rush  to 
the  spot  and  find  a  man  in  the  depths  of 
grief  because  his  friend  has  cut  off  a  yard 
or  two  from  a  piece  of  bark  cloth  belonging 
to  them  in  common.  Suicide  is  not  uncom- 
mon. Closely  connected  with  pride  is 
swagger,  often  shown  in  the  compilation  of 
fantastic  pedigrees.  The  arts  of  diplomacy 
thrive  in  this  soil ;  these  hot-blooded  natures 
have  a  capacity,  which  one  would  hardly 
suspect,  for  clothing  themselves  in  an  im- 
penetrable etiquette.  The  forms  of  good 
manners  are  strictly  observed. 

The  frequency  of  theft  is  well  known, 
but  it  is  chiefly  directed  against  strangers. 
Native  plantations  are  to  natives  inviolable ; 
yet  so  powerful  a  motive  is  covetousness, 
that  the  plundering  of  a  grave  is  no  uncom- 
mon event,  even  when  nothing  more  than  a 

few  rags   is  to  be  got   by   it.      It   sometimes   happens,  however,  that  a  person 
caught  in  the  act  of  committing  this  crime  gets  burnt  or  buried  alive. 

Revenge  may  form  the  most  important  duty  in  lifeTor  a  Melanesian.  If  a 
man  is  injured  he  puts  up  a  stick  or  a  stone  where  he  can  see  it,  to  keep  him 
constantly  in  mind  of  the  duty  of  revenge.  If  a  man  abstains  from  food  or 
keeps  away  from  the  dance  it  is  a  bad  sign  for  his  enemies.  The  man  who  goes 
about  with  his  head  half- shaved,  or,  in  addition  to  this,  allows  a  long  twisted 
bunch  of  hair  to  hang  down  his  back,  is  thinking  of  revenge.  Sometimes  a 
bundle  of  tobacco  hangs  from  the  gable,  which  is  only  to  be  smoked  over  the 
corpse  of  an  enemy,  or  the  bloody  clothes  of  a  slain  relation  preserves  the 
memory  of  an  unatoned  deed.  Nor  is  there  any  lack  of  friends  to  keep  a  man 
in  mind  of  his  duty  with  songs  either  lamenting  or  censuring.  Open  violence 
is  not  the  only  means  of  appeasing  revenge.      Hired  assassins  are  employed,  or 


Woman  of  the  Anchorite's  Islands.     (From  the 
Godeffroy  Album. ) 


220 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


magical  devices  with  sticks,  leaves,  or  reeds,  are  adopted.  A  dead  man  often  takes 
a  whole  generation  with  him  ;  his  wives  are  throttled,  and  his  mother  often 
shares  the  same  fate.  Treacherous  and  bloodthirsty  acts,  such  as  have  earned 
a  bad  reputation  for  the  Solomon  Islanders  in  particular,  may.  often  be  referred 
only  to  expiation  for  some  injustice  suffered.  There  is  no  abstract  word  corre- 
sponding to  our  "  Thanks,"  it  is  even  regarded  as  good  manners  for  the  person 
who  receives  a  present  not  to  betray  any  feeling.  People  when  they  meet  greet 
each  other  with  words  like,  "  You  are  staying,"  "  Go  on  "  ;  rubbing  of  noses  is 
only  found  among  the  Polynesians,  kissing  was  originally  unknown.  The  Banks 
Islanders  use  as  a  familiar  greeting  a  sounding  smack  with  the  hand. 


Woman  of  the  Anchorite's  Islands.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album.) 

The  degrees  of  activity  and  prosperity  are  numerous.  In  Mallicollo  and 
New  Caledonia  the  people  are  poor  and  lazy.  On  the  other  hand  those  of  Fiji 
and  New  Britain  are  proud  of  possession  and  greedy  for  gain  ;  quite  ready  to 
beg  of  strangers,  but  clever  in  trade.  Our  ethnographical  museums  possess  an 
astounding  wealth  of  works  of  art  from  certain  favoured  spots  ;  of  which  we  need 
only  name  Astrolabe  Bay  and  the  little  D'Entrecasteaux  Islands.  Though  out- 
ward appearance  is  indistinguishable,  there  are  poor  people,  well-to-do  people, 
rich,  very  rich,  just  as  with  us.  The  saying  is,  as  Finsch  tells  us,  "  He  is  worth 
ten  or  more  rings  of  diwarra."  We  have  already  contradicted  the  unfounded 
assumption  that  the  Melanesians  are  an  altogether  weak,  backward-driven  group 
of  races ;  and  need  here  only  recall  a  remark  of  D'Albertis  concerning  the 
inhabitants  of  Hall  Sound  in  New  Guinea,  who  have  come  but  little  into  contact 
with  civilization :  "  We  may  have  many  reasons  for  calling  them  savages  ;  but 
they  live  in  a  state  of  relative  comfort  and  good  fortune  which  one  might  almost 
denote  as  culture." 

Dull  and  barren  stupidity  does  not  characterise  the  mental  endowment  of  the 


THE  NEGROID  RACES   OF  THE  PACIFIC  AND  INDIAN  OCEANS      221 


Musical  instrument  from  New  Ireland — one-third 
real  size.     (Godeffroy  Collection,  Leipzig. ) 


Melanesians.  German  observers  have  drawn  special  attention  to  the  capacity  of 
the  Bismarck  Islanders  for  education.  In  judging  of  their  intellectual  nature  we 
must  overlook  neither  the  acuteness  of 
their  senses  nor  their  inventive  faculty. 
These  "  savages  "  find  tools,  twine,  packing 
materials,  where  the  white  man  is  at  a 
helpless  standstill.  To  their  keen  prac- 
tical eye  Nature  seems  a  storehouse  of 
useful  articles,  where  what  they  require 
at  the  moment  is  constantly  at  hand. 
Figurative  language  is  everywhere  in  use  ; 
and  by  means  of  obsolete  or  borrowed 
words  it  has  attained  the  position  of  a 
regular  poetic  dialect.  In  the  Banks  Islands 
almost  every  village  has  its  poet  or  poetess, 

whose  performances  do  not  remain  unrewarded.     Death  is  often  referred  to  as 
"  sleep,"  and  fluids  that  have  become  set  as  "  sleeping  "  ;  they  speak  of  dying  as 

a  sunset,  and  denote  ignorance  by  "  the  night 

of  the  spirit."     For  modesty  they  employ  the 

term  by  which  they  indicate  the 

gentle  half-tones  of  evening  light. 

To  reef  the  sail  is  to  fold  the  wing. 

If  their  feeling  for  Nature  is  less 

than  might  be  expected  when  we 

look  at  their  noble  landscapes  and 

their  beautiful  flowing  seas,  their 

poetry  and  their 

art     make    free 

use  of  these  in 

description   and 

picture. 

Apart  from 
its  didactic,  pro- 
verbial, brief 
terms  of  phrase 
which  betray 
keen  observa- 
tion and  wit 
rather  than 
fancy,  Fijian 
poetry  finds  its 
most  character- 
istic expression 
in  the  so-called 
Meke,  a  name 
which      implies 

both  song  and  dance.     To  only  a  few  elect  is  it  given   to  invent  these  ;  and 
those  allege  that  they  are  carried  in  their  sleep  to  the  spirit-world,  where  divine 


Spatula  for  betel-lime  from  New  Guinea — one-half  real  size, 
in  New  Guinea — one-eighth  real  size  (Christy  Collection), 
in  the  New  Hebrides  (after  Codrington). 


■2.   Drum  from  Pigville 
3.   Drums  from  Amboyna 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


beings  teach  them  a  song  with  the  appropriate  dance.  The  ideal  of  the  Fijian 
poet  is  regular  measure  and  every  verse  ending  with  the  same  vowel.  This  he 
seeks    to  obtain  by  arbitrary  abbreviations    and    lengthenings,    by    the    use    of 

expletives,       omission       of 


Cafved  coco-nut  from  New  Guinea — one-half  real  size.    (Christy  Collection. 


general 


articles,  and  other  poetical 
licenses.  Seldom,  however, 
is  a  poem  achieved  like  that 
recorded  by  Mr.  Williams, 
consisting  of  eighteen  verses 
all  ending  in  au.  In  the 
historical  and  legendary 
ballads  the  disposition  to- 
wards exaggeration  often 
takes  a  grotesque  form ; 
nor  are  interpolations  often 
lacking,  to  bring  in  some 
quite  irrelevant  bit  of 
coarseness  which  for  the 
public  constitutes  the  main  attraction  of  the  poem.  The  ballads  are 
chiefly  sung  at  night,  with  the  inevitable  dances  ;  but  so  great  is  the  love  of  the 
Melanesians  for  song  that  they  sing  at  their  field-work  or  when  rowing  or 
walking  about.      As  a  rule  one  sings  a  verse  and  the  chorus  repeats  it. 

Melanesian  music  on  the  whole  resembles  Polynesian.  Musical  instruments 
are  absent  only  from  the  smallest  islands.  The  prevalence  of  the  drum  in  all  forms 
reminds  us  of  Africa.  A  small 
drum,  made  from  a  bamboo  with 
a  slit  in  it,  and  beaten  with  a  stick. 
is  carried  especially  by  the  women, 
in  order  to  announce  their  ap- 
proach on  occasions  at  which  they 
are  excluded.  From  New  Ire- 
land we  have  a  peculiar  wooden 
instrument  from  which  a  vibrat- 
ing tone  is  extracted  by  drawing 
the  flat  hand  along  it.  The 
people  of  New  Britain  had  pan-pipes  varying  in  size  and  number  of  pipes ;  Jews' 
harps  of  bamboo  are  also  found  in  the  Solomon  Isles.  There,  too,  on  festive 
occasions,  bands  composed  of  twenty  men  perform,  more  than  half  of  whom  play 
wind  instruments,  reeds  fastened  twenty-three  in  a  row,  and  straight  flutes  of 
bamboo  some  3  feet  long  by  2\  inches  thick,  from  which  they  extract  two  or 
three  tones  with  chords  of  thirds  or  fifths.  The  others  beat  large  bamboo 
drums  with  a  stick.  The  principle  of  the  Melanesian  drum  is  a  bamboo  cane 
or  a  hollow  stem  with  a  narrow  slit  on  the  thin  edges  of  which  it  is  beaten. 
Each  of  these  drums  is  one  size  smaller  than  the  next,  and  gives  a  note 
different  by  an  octave  from  that  of  the  next.  The  flute  is  forbidden  to  women, 
—indeed  superstition  says  that  they  die  if  they  see  it,  and  the  same  with  the 
bull-roarer.  Among  the  Tugeri  a  signal  whistle  is  found,  made  from  a  small 
coco-nut,  with  several  holes  bored  in  it. 


New  Hebridean  ornament  (enlarged). 


DRESS  AND    WEAPONS   OF  THE  MELANESIANS 


■zi'i 


The  dances  often  agree  even  in  details  with  those  of  the  Polynesians.  At 
funeral  festivities  they  dance  round  a  drum  with  a  human  countenance  to  represent 
the  departed.  Sometimes  the 
dancers  consider  themselves  to 
be  ghosts  ;  dancing  is  also  a 
diversion  of  ghosts.  The  indi- 
vidual movements  consist  of 
bowings  and  swayings,  or 
jumping  up  and  down  ;  but 
they  also  have  mimic  war- 
dances,  executed  by  two  ranks 
of  men  armed  with  spear  and 
shield.  Masks  are  worn  at 
these,  and  if  they  are  beast 
masks  we  get  an  idea  very  like 
that  of  the  Dance  of  Death. 

The  Melanesians  are  often 
spoken  of  as  among  the  races 
who  cannot  count  beyond 
three  or  five,  but  numerals  for 
ten  are  found  everywhere,  and 
in  New  Britain  the  money 
reckonings  extend  to  sums 
which  would  make  us  look  for 
numbers  higher  than  a  hundred. 
A  kind  of  knotted  cord-writing 
and  similar  aids  to  notation 
are  also  not  absent  here. 

In  the  calculation  of  time  and  the  observation  of  the  heavens,  some  groups 
of  the  Melanesians  have  much  the  same  knowledge  at  their  command  as  the  Poly- 
nesians have.  In  New  Guinea  the  year  is  divided  by  the  changes  of  the 
monsoon  ;  months  and  longer  periods  are  distinguished  according  to  the  labours 
of  the  field  ;  but  we  find  also  a  division  according  to  the  position  of  the  Pleiads, 
the  reappearance  of  which  in  the  northern  heaven  betokens  the  return  of  spring. 
A  large  number  of  constellations  denoted  as  the  Boat  with  its  Outrigger,  the  Bow- 
bender,  the  Bird,  the  Hunting  Brothers,  serve  to  obtain  bearings  in  navigation, 
and  to  indicate  the  time  of  night.  We  have  already  spoken  of  the  navigation  of 
these  races  on  p.  i66. 

Of  writing  we  know  only  traces,  in  the  picture-writing  as  scratched  by  the 
New  Caledonians  on  bamboo,  or  engraved  by  the  Fijians  as  well  as  the  Tongans 
in  the  shape  of  little  figures  among  the  ornamentation  of  their  clubs. 


Bit  of  etched  design  on  a  coco-nut,  from  Babel  in  the  Solomons. 
(After  Codrington. ) 


§  6.  DRESS  AND  WEAPONS  OF  THE  MELANESIANS 

Clothing— Tattooing  and  painting— Dressing  of  the  hair— Ornament— Great  number  and  variety  of  weapons 
— Spears— Clubs — Stone  clubs— Axes— Bow  and  arrow— Smaller  weapons— Defensive  armour. 

The  clothing  of  the  Melanesians  seems  to  justify  Peschel's  law  that  clothing  varies 
among  men  inversely  as  the  darkness  of  their  colour.     The  darker  Melanesians 


224 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


are  in  general  less  clad  than  the  lighter  Polynesians.  Their  ornament  is  all  the 
richer  and  more  various,  and  the  woolly  hair  especially  brings  with  it  a  greater 
variety  of  hairdressing.  We  find  men  in 
Melanesia  very  scantily  clad,  and  there  are 
not  lacking  trustworthy  reports  of  some  who 
are  completely  naked.  The  Adamic  costume 
of  the  men  in  the  Banks  Islands,  however, 
standing  in  sharp  contrast  to  their  skill  in 
weaving  mats,  places  them  very  low  in  the 
estimation  of  their  neighbours,  though  among 
these  also,  so  far  as  they  are  Melanesians, 
limited  clothing  is  the  rule.  Where  clothing 
is  more  complete  we  are  sure  to  find  traces  of 
Polynesian  and  Malayan 
influence.  The  foundation 
of  the  Melanesian  man's 
dress  is  a  belt,  either 
platted  or  made  of  bark, 
passing  from  the  hips 
between  the  legs ;  while 
the  women  wear  one  or 
two  aprons  of  fibre  from 
grass,  palm,  or  pandanus 
leaves.  These  elements 
recur  everywhere,  and  the 
idea  of  what  is  becoming 
and  respectable  in  cloth- 
ing is  essentially  concen- 
trated upon  them.  But 
the  notions  of  modesty 
are  extremely  various. 
The  people  of  Massilia 
on  the  Finsch  coast  wear 
a  broad  bark  girdle  pass- 
ing twice  round   the  body 


Wigs  of  human  hair  worn  in  battle,  from  Vanna  Levu. 
Museum. ) 


(Frankfort  City 


Of 


Head-dress  lilce  an  eye-shade  from  New  Guinea- 
real  size.      (British  Museum.) 


a  higher  kind  of  dress,  which  may  be  called 
that  of  the  Polynesian  colonies, 
Fiji  affords  the  best  examples. 
Here  the  tapa  material  renders 
a  richer  style  of  clothing  possible. 
The  wrapping  which  passes  be- 
tween the  thighs  is  of  such 
breadth  and  length  that  it  ex- 
tends to  a  couple  of  hundred 
feet.  The  usual  measure  is  of  12 
to  20  feet ;  it  is  wound  several 
times  round  the  loins  in  such  a 
way  that  the  ends  hang  down  to 


-one-fifth 


the  knee  in  front,  and  lower  behind.      In  West  Melanesia,  also,  tapa  is  indeed 


DRESS  AND    WEAPONS  OF  THE  MELANESIANS 


225 


made  in  the  Southern  Solomon  Isles  from  the  paper  mulberry ;  in  the  New 
Hebrides  and  New  Guinea  from  the  sacred  fig-tree.  Instead  of  the  printed 
pattern,  as  shown  in  the  cut  on  p.  183,  we  here  iind  the  stuff  streaked  with 
colour  and  moistened  with  the  tongue  or  teeth. 

The  tattooing  in  Melanesia  is  only  in  isolated  instances  of  the  artistic  character 


Fiji  warrior  in  a  wig.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album. ) 


found  among  the  Polynesians.  It  has  more  affinity  with  the  Australian  type  of 
cicatrised  wounds  than  with  the  Polynesian  punctures,  and  it  is  often  not  applied 
until  the  age  of  maturity.  Among  the  light-skinned  Motus  of  New  Guinea  we 
find  tattooing  in  patterns  recalling  those  of  Micronesia.  On  the  south  coast  of 
New  Guinea  Miklouho-Maclay  found  even  the  shaven  scalps  of  the  women  covered 
with  tattooing.  Where  there  are  indications  of  a  mixture  of  Melanesians  with 
Polynesians,  it  has  been  thought  that  the  races  may  be  distinguished  according 
to  their  respective  methods  of  tattooing.  For  example,  in  the  islands  off  the 
eastern   point   of  New   Guinea,   in    the   Solomon    Islands  (where   the    cicatrised 

Q 


226 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


tattooing  has  been  observed  only  in  Bougainville,  Isabel,  and  the  Southern 
Islands),  and  in  New  Ireland.  Men  and  women  are  often  differently  tattooed : 
in  girls  tattooing  indicates  that  they  have  reached  nubility  ;  in  men,  the  slaying 
of  a  child  is  one  of  the  things  announced  by  the  tattooing  of  the  breast  on  one 
side.  In  tattooing,  also,  East  and  West  Melanesia  represent  the  extremes  which 
in  the  central  parts  are  mingled. 

In   Fiji  the  puncturing  with  the  four  or  five-toothed  instrument  is   limited 

to  women,  and   in    them  to   par- 
ticular  parts — the   lower  part  of 
the     body     and     the     thigh,    the 
corner     of    the     mouth,    and    the 
finger.      It  has  a  religious  sugges- 
tion, and  is  enjoined  by  Ndengei. 
But  here,  too,  cicatrices  appear  in 
conjunction  with  it,  produced  as  a 
rule  by  means   of  shells.      In  cer- 
tain localities  of  West  Melanesia 
the   other    kinds   of  tattooing  are 
almost  excluded,  or  at  all  events 
reduced  to  a  minimum.     Among 
other  mutilations  of  the  body,  we 
get  distinct  reports  of  circumcision 
only    from     New    Caledonia,    the 
southern  New  Hebrides,  and  Fiji, 
which  appears  to  have   been   the 
starting  -  point     in     comparatively 
recent  times  of  its  extension  west- 
V/ard.      In    Finsch    Harbour   it  is 
performed  with  much  festivity,  the 
women    being   banished    into    the 
forest  until  their  boys'  wounds  are 
healed  ;  afterwards  the  patients  go 
to    live    there.      The    custom    of 
cutting  off  joints   of  the  finger  in 
times  of  mourning  or  sickness  is 
almost  universal.     To  go  with  the 
whole  or  half  of  the  face  and  the 
breast  painted  with  red  clay  is  a 

Nose-ornament,  breastplate,  and  arm-ring  of  boar's  tusks    from    P''^^'-^'^^    Usually    Confined    tO    men, 
New  Gmnea-one-eighth  real  size.      (Christy  Collection.)  as     also    is     that     of     blacking     the 

crU,^.  o   1     ..      iM      ,  ,     ,    ,  ^°^^  ^^'^'^  ^  kind  of  earth  which 

fmon.  th.  M  ;      .^^  '""t     ^^^  "°"'"  "'^°  "■''  occasionally  seen  blacked; 

W  fnd   K  ^  ■"  J^  '°  ^'  "  "^"  ""^  '"°"'-"'"^-      I"  ^-lil<-  enterprises    , 

ace  and  body  are  pamted  in  stripes  of  ^vhite,  yellow,  red,  and  black;  in  Fiji 
this  custom  has  been  brought  to  a  high  point  of  art ;  the  not  very  cleanly  Maclure 
i'apuas  are  reported  to  smear  their  bodies  with  clay. 

In   Melanesia  all  hair  is   sedulously  plucked  out  from  the  body    while  the 
treatment  of  the  hair  of  the  head  with  caustic  lime   is  quite  as  ge^e^al   as  in 


DUESS  AND    WEAPONS   OF  THE  MELANESIANS  227 

Polynesia,  at  times  carried  even  further.  In  Fiji  the  crisp  black  hair  is  towzled 
up,  and  great  pains  are  expended  upon  colouring  it  with  charcoal  or  lime  ;  then  it 
sometimes  surrounds  the  head  in  a  strong  turban-like  pad,  or  else  reminds  the 
observer  of  a  full-bottomed  wig,  as  also  in  New  Guinea  ;  while  at  times  it  hangs 
down  in  the  form  of  numerous  thin  strands  or  wisps.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the 
Anchorite  and  Solomon  Islands  the  hair  is  in  some  cases  shaven,  in  others  plaited 
into  top-knots  stuck  together  with  gum,  and  often  coloured  red,  black,  yellow,  or 
white,  but  constantly  adorned  with  feathers,  flowers,  shells,  or  tastefully  ornamented 
cones  of  bamboo.  White  parrot's  feathers  stuck  on  the  top  of  the  head  are  signs 
of  rank  ;  in  Malicollo  the  hair  is  dressed  in  porcupine  fashion,  wisps  as  thick  as 
the  quill  of  a  pigeon's  feather  being  wound  round  with  the  bast  of  a  kind  of 
creeper  ;  artificial  wigs  are  also  prepared  from  the  coloured  fibres  of  plants.  In 
Fiji,  persons  of  eminence  have  private  hair-curlers,  who  are  occupied  for  hours 
every  day  in  the  preparation  of  the  wigs.  The  geometrical  accuracy  of  the 
individual  details,  the  rounded  softness  of  the  outlines,  the  symmetrical  dyeing 
with  shiny  black,  dark  blue,  grey,  white,  red,  yellow,  have  often  been  mentioned 
with  eulogy.  Beside  hairdressing,  head-dresses  of  various  descriptions  occur  ;  the 
Hattams  of  New  Guinea  wear  a  little  cowl  with  coloured  feathers  woven  in,  and 
Cook  found  among  the  naked  New  Hebrideans  small  caps  of  woven  mat.  In 
Fiji  a  turban  of  white  masi,  from  which  a  piece  of  cloth  falls  down  at  the  back, 
or  two  lappets  over  the  ears,  is  indispensable  for  a  man  of  rank.  Open-work  caps 
made  of  a  piece  of  matting  adorned  with  strips  of  dark  bast  are  customary  in  New 
Ireland  and  New  Hanover  ;  woven  eye-shades  are  found  in  New  Guinea. 

A  great  part  of  the  wealth  of  these  races  consists  of  ornaments,  and  since 
these  find  extensive  employment  as  a  medium  of  exchange,  trade  tends  to 
increase  the  production  of  them.  The  greatest  amount  of  ornament  falls  to  the 
share  of  the  men  ;  the  younger  women  wear  little,  the  elder  go  almost  unadorned. 
For  instance,  the  eye  teeth  of  the  dog  are  held  in  special  esteem  among  the 
Melanesians  ;  but,  while  the  man  covers  his  entire  breastplate  with  them,  the  wife 
wears  at  most  one  or  two  in  her  ear.  Ears,  nose,  and  lips  are  bored  to  receive 
ornaments.  The  Papuas  of  Hood  Bay  wear  a  band  of  pearls  at  either  end  of  a 
thread  which  is  passed  round  the  head.  In  Makira,  Rietmann  saw  a  young 
flying-fox  used  as  a  lady's  ear-ornament,  with  one  foot  attached  to  the  lobe  of  the 
ear.  Among  the  Tugeri,  pigs'  bones  some  8  inches  long  are  worn  in  the  nose. 
Polynesian  influence  is  probably  to  be  seen  in  Sikayana,  if,  as  alleged,  nose  and 
ear  ornaments  are  not  in  use  there.  In  general,  the  employment  of  shells  in 
ornament  diminishes  as  we  proceed  eastward.  In  Fiji,  as  to  some  extent  even  in 
New  Britain,  whales'  or  cachalots'  teeth  turn  up  as  the  article  of  ornament  or 
value  that  is  most  in  demand.  They  occur  often  in  entire  necklaces.  Corre- 
sponding to  these  is  the  employment  in  New  Britain  and  elsewhere  of  shell-money 
in  the  form  of  gigantic  ear-pendants. 

Melanesians  wear  white  arm-rings,  some  4  inches  thick,  of  Trochus  shell  ;  in 
New  Guinea  these  serve  the  further  purpose  of  receptacles  for  the  cassowary-bone 
daggers.  They  are  laboriously  ground  out  on  sharp  splinters  of  coral-rock.  The 
Solomon  Islanders  wear  spiral  bands  of  a  liana  which  comes  from  Buka,  on 
the  left  arm,  as  a  protection  against  the  recoil  of  the  bowstring,  and  also  as 
insignia  of  a  chief ;  they  wear,  too,  combs  made  of  the  stiff  reddish-brown  stalks 
of  a  grass,  woven  together  with   fibre  in   elegant   patterns.     Feather -ornament 


228 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


displays  great  luxuriance  in  New  Hanover,  and  much  taste  is  shown  in  the 
combination  of  forms  and  colours  with  vegetable  fibres  and  beads  on  sticks.  For 
example,  a  delicately-formed  face  in  feather-mosaic  will  be  seen  forming  the  head 
of  a  hairpin.  In  New  Guinea  the  work  is  on  a  larger  scale,  and  loses  in  elegance, 
even  when  it  consists  of  an  entire  bird  of  paradise  on  a  stick,  as  is  found  at 
Astrolabe  Bay.  In  Tagai,  pouches  of  varnished  palm-leaf  are  made  to  preserve 
these  costly  adornments.  Favourite  gauds  in  Simbo,  Ulakua,  Choiseul,  and 
Guadalcanar  are  plaited  frontlets  with  large  white  shells,  or  chains  similarly  worn 
of  porpoise's  or  dog's  teeth.     A  rosette  of  yellow  and  red  cockatoo  or  parrot- 


Shell  plaques  for  adorning  the  breast  and  forehead     i    From  the  Solomon  Islands — one-third  real  size 
the  Admiralty  Islands — one-fourth  real  size.      (Christy  Collection. ) 


From 


feathers,  frequently  smartened  with  shells,  is  bound  on  the  forehead,  and  serves  at 
once  for  ornament  and  for  defence  ;  it  often  consists  of  a  thin  polished  piece  of 
Tridacna  gigas,  on  which  is  laid  a  piece  of  open  work  in  tortoise-shell.  Among 
the  Admiralty  Islanders  disks  of  shell  appear  in  great  numbers  as  breastplates, 
hung  from  the  neck.  Both  in  form  and  material  these  ornaments  testify  to  great 
assiduity,  to  which  the  high  esteem  in  which  they  are  held  corresponds.  They 
extend  from  Madagascar  to  Hawaii,  and  have  found  their  way  into  the  heart  of 
Africa.  From  them  taste  evolves  every  sort  of  combination.  Simple  necklaces, 
plaited  ,  from  variegated  straw  or  bast-fibres,  or  made  from  teeth,  even  human 
teeth,  berries,  fruits,  and  so  forth,  are  found,  as  well  as  more  costly  kinds. 
Among  New  Guinea  ornaments  boar's  teeth  play  the  most  prominent  part ;  in 


DRESS  AND    WEAPONS   OF  THE  MELANESIANS  229 

the  northern  parts  of  the  island  the  naturally-curved  tusks  being  the  decorative 
objects  most  in  demand.  Compared  vi^ith  these  the  neck-threads  of  plaited  grass, 
even  with  small  shells  or  seeds  strung  on  them,  are  inconspicuous  ;  but  the  chains 
of  human  teeth,  dogs'  incisors,  or  cut  shells  often  produce  quite  an  elegant  effect. 
In  the  Solomons,  chains  consisting  of  twenty  to  twenty -five  pieces  of  various 
coloured  shells,  mingled  with  human  teeth,  or  of  little  shells  strung  at  regular 
distances  on  coco-nut  fibre,  are  highly  esteemed.  In  these  instances  the  transi- 
tion from  ornament  to  currency  is  not  remote.  On  Florida,  in  the  Solomons, 
a  string  of  red,  white,  and  black  shells  seven  yards  long  or  so  is  the  price  of  a 
wife.  At  Finsch  Harbour  beads  of  small  polished  snail-shells  are  worn  round 
the  neck,  in  New  Britain  round  the  hips,  in  the  Admiralty  Islands  as  aprons. 
Finger-rings  of  silver,  pinchbeck,  or  gilt  brass  have  been  introduced  by  traders. 
The  Solomon  Islanders  carry  tobacco  and  other  small  articles  in  their  plaited 
arm -bands;  while  in  Nissan  the  people  invariably  carry  their  betel -lime  in  a 
small  coco-nut  or  gourd  fastened  by  a  short  string  to  the  left  little  finger. 

Men  are  seldom  seen  in  Melanesia  without  weapons.  Every  group  of  islands 
has  its  own  patterns,  though  the  actual  weapons — spear,  bow,  and  club — are 
everywhere  the  same.  They  are,  however,  unequally  distributed,  or  else  other 
weapons  of  more  limited  distribution  occur.  The  weapons  of  Melanesia 
unquestionably  are  some  of  the  choicest  productions  of  dexterity  and  taste  found 
among  the  lower  races,  as  our  plate  of  Melanesian  and  Micronesian  weapons  and 
utensils  will  show.  Their  neatness,  variety  of  form,  and  actual  number  are 
wonderful.  It  is  an  unexplained  departure  from  the  rule  that,  on  the  single  island 
of  Api  or  Tasika  in  the  New  Hebrides,  no  weapons  are  carried. 

In  Melanesia,  again,  the  most  esteemed  and  most  generally-used  weapon  is 
the  spear,  the  forms  of  which,  as  Strauch  says  when  speaking  of  the  Admiralty 
Islands,  are  as  various  as  the  faces  of  the  inhabitants.  Plain  but  carefully-worked 
javelins,  as  found  in  New  Caledonia,  may  be  regarded  as  the  simplest  representa- 
tives of  this  weapon  ;  thongs  of  plaited  tapa  are  used  in  the  manipulation  of  them. 
But  the  most  finished  productions  of  the  New  Caledonian  armourers  belong  equally 
to  the  spear-class.  Curiously  enough  it  is  not  the  "  business  end  "  of  the  weapon, 
but  the  shaft,  to  which  the  greatest  attention  is  devoted.  The  fundamental  type 
remains  a  staff,  reaching  sometimes  a  length  of  10  feet,  and  pointed  at  both  ends. 
The  modifications  consist  merely  in  the  addition  of  a  carved  human  head,  repeated 
as  often  as  four  times,  below  the  point ;  or  in  wrapping  the  shaft  in  the  same 
region  with  whitish  tapa  or  bat's  hair ;  a  stick  wound  with  string,  and  with  a  long 
string  attached  to  it,  is  bound  into  this  ;  while,  in  addition  to  the  wooden  point,  a 
ray's  spine  is  let  in  to  form  a  secondary  point.  In  New  Britain  they  wind  simple 
bast  round  it,  and  attach  a  tassel  of  vegetable  fibre,  ornamented  with  feathers. 
The  butt  is  sometimes  provided  with  a  hexagonal  knob,  or  terminated  with  the 
bone  of  a  cassowary  or  a  man.  Of  these  spears  there  are  two  of  larger  size 
intended  for  throwing.  In  New  Ireland  the  brown  polished  carved  kind  are  more 
frequent  than  in  New  Hanover,  and  near  Port  Sulphur  we  meet  with  spears 
decked  with  feathers  and  human  bones  like  those  of  New  Britain.  As  a  rule 
the  spears  are  slim  and  pliant ;  but  a  broadening  of  the  head,  accompanied  with 
perforation,  occurs,  especially  in  Fiji,  under  various  patterns.  On  the  whole, 
however,  where  the  spear  is  ornamented  the  head  remains  simple.  Here,  again, 
the    Solomon    Islands    show  the   most   advanced  development.       Besides   spears 


230 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Weapons  from  the  Admiralty  Islands  :    .,    2.   Spears  with   obsidian 
heads.      3.  Javehn  with  the  same.     4-8.   Spear  heads,      g-n 
Obsidian  knives.     12.    Knife  of  mother-of-pearl  shell 
tenth,  4-12,  one-sixth  of  real  size.     (Christy  Collection. 


-3,  one- 


ornamented     with     pieces     of 
mother-of-pearl  fixed  in  mastic, 
the  islanders  have  their  spear- 
heads  artistically  carved  from 
human  arm-bones  or  the  lower 
jaw     of     the     toucan.       New 
Guinea  possesses  both  spears 
pointed  with   cassowary  bone 
and   simple   sharpened   shafts. 
The    former    are    heavy    war- 
weapons,  for  thrusting,  lo  feet 
long  or  more  ;   the  latter  light, 
and  intended  chiefly  for  fishing. 
Unornamented     spears     with 
points      toothed      like      saws, 
either  two  or  four-edged,  repre- 
sent hunting  or  fishing  imple- 
ments    rather     than .    warlike 
weapons,  and  form  the  transi- 
tion to  the  fish-spears  with  four 
or   five    barbs,   attached    to  a 
heavy,    roughly -worked    shaft 
by    means    of    plaited    palm- 
fibres.      Spears  with   opposite 
rows    of   barbs   occur  only  in 
Fiji   and   the    New    Hebrides. 
There  the  heads  are  perforated, 
forked,    jagged,    wavy,     lami- 
nated— in     a    word,    wrought 
into  every  sort  of  shape.     Fre- 
quently they  consist  from  end 
to    end    of   fine   wood,   which 
exactly  in  the  heaviest  places 
is  carved   into  a  piece   barely 
attached.      Spears  of  this  kind 
are    intended   more    as    orna- 
mental weapons,  to  gratify  the 
bearer's  pride,  than  for  the  foe. 
In  the  Admiralty  Islands 
the  abundance  of  obsidian  and 
bitumen  affords  the  means  for 
a  development   in   the  manu- 
facture     of     stone     weapons, 
which  in  one  direction  supple- 
ments   the    general    level     at 
which  the  inhabitants  of  New 
Guinea  and  the  neighbouring 
islands  stand  in  respect  of  this 


DRESS  AND    WEAPONS  OF   THE  MELANESIANS 


231 


art.      Here,  too,  spears  have    reached   an    extraordinary  perfection.      The   head 

consists  always  of  the  choicest  pieces  of  a  granular  striped  basalt,  and  is  attached 

to  the  shaft  by  means  of  a  copious  layer,  of  bitumen  and  string  wound  close  with 

great  care.     The  bitumen  bed  which  gradually  thins  off  towards  the  handle  is 

either  decorated  in  simple  geometrical  lines  with  the  spaces  coloured  black,  red, 

and  white,  and  set  with  little 

shells,  or  perforated  with  a 

diamond  -  shaped     opening. 

The  shaft  is  always  rough, 

just  as  it  grew  on  the  tree, 

and  frequently   weak    also. 

From  New  Caledonia  to  the 

New     Hebrides,     the     Fiji 

Islands,     and     from     New 

Guinea,     we      get     missile 

spears  with  long  points  of 

hard   wood    or    bone.      On 

the     shaft    we     may    often 

notice     appendages     which 

may  be  of  use  in  hurling  it. 

In     some     parts     of     New 

Guinea,    as    Venus     Point, 

Hatzfeld    Harbour,  and    up 

the  Empress  Augusta  river, 

we     find     throwing  -  sticks. 

The  throwing-thong  of  New 

Caledonia    arises    from    the 

same  idea. 

Clubs  are  among  the 
most  popular  weapons  in 
Melanesia  ;  like  the  spears, 
they  find  their  greatest 
development  in  the  east- 
ward islands,  particularly 
in  Fiji  and  the  Solomons. 
Certain  parts  of  New  Guinea, 
as  Maclure  Gulf,  possess  no 
clubs.  These  weapons  serve 
for  striking  or  for  guarding 
arrows  and  javelins,  and  in 
general  they  form  the  accompaniment  of  every  expedition.  Hence  their  double 
position  as  insignia  of  rank  and  weapons.  They  are  often  so  heavy  and  shape- 
less, and  yet  wrought  with  such  an  expenditure  of  labour,  patience,  and  ingenuity, 
that  they  must  be  intended  for  some  purposes  other  than  fighting  only.  The  clubs 
of  celebrated  warriors  in  Fiji  used  to  have  names  of  honour  or  pet  names  ;  in  their 
shapes  some  seem  to  be  connected  with  the  four-edged  Tongan  type,  others  with 
the  paddle-shaped  weapons  of  Tonga  and  Samoa.  A  peculiar  form  is  the 
imitation  of  a  flint  musket,  lock  and  all  ;  another  is  a  point  projecting  from  a 


New  Caledonian  clubs,  and  a  painted  dance  club  (a)  from  the  New 
Hebrides.     (Vienna  Museum. ) 


232  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

prickly  fruit.     In  New  Caledonia  the  most  frequent  form  of  club  is  the  simplest, 
namely  a  bludgeon  merely  taken  from  a  kn9tty  branch.     The  first  stage  towards 
finishing  lies  in  the  making  of  a  sharp  edge  round  the  knob,  the  next  in  childish 
striped  ornaments ;  or  a  favourite  plan  is  to  jag  the  end  in  a  star  shape.     A 
peculiar  club  is  one  in  the  shape  of  a  bird's  head,  which  here  replaces  that  used 
in  Mota  to  open  bread-fruit.     But  in  all  an  easily  recognisable  difference  from 
those  of  Fiji  and  Tonga  is  formed  by  the  grip  which  thickens  abruptly  at  the 
handle  end.      Together  with  this  goes  the  splicing  of  the  handle  with  string,  ribbon, 
palm  fibres,  even   dry  fern.      In  the  case  of   the   richest  or  most  distinguished 
persons   the   throwing-cords   are   fitted   with   reddish   brown    knots.      This   ulti- 
mately led   to  the  reddish  brown  shaggy  ornament  as  found  also  on  spears.      In 
recent  times  it  has   been   imitated   by  means   of   imported   red   wool,  even   by 
miserable  shreds  of  cotton,  a  melancholy  symbol  of  the  decay  of  the  old   glory  of 
the  Kanakas.     The  clubs  in  the  Solomon    Islands    depart  very  little   from  the 
paddle  form  ;  they  have  a  projecting  middle  line  resembling  the  rib  of  a  leaf,  and 
a  handle  with  a  shoulder.      Further  decorations,  such  as  ears   at  the  sides  of  the 
paddle  blade,  or  a  sharper  shoulder  where  this  passes  into   the  shaft,  are  of  a 
modest  character.      Another  type  has  arisen   through  the   bending  of  the  blade 
whereby  either  the  middle  rib  is  thrown  into  strong  prominence,  or  an  opportunity 
is  given  for  more  delicate  ornamentation  by  means  of  zig-zag  lines,  or  a  spike-like 
angle  juts  out  from  the  vertex  of  the  curve.     The  handles   are  decorated  with 
ornaments  of  every  kind,  carvings  of  squatting  idols,  pretty  woven  work  of  coloured 
bast  in  tasteful  patterns;    while  in  the  flat  straight  clubs  the  blade  is  polished, 
smooth  and  sharpened  at  both  edges,  and  the  handle  bound.     Clubs  from  the  New 
Hebrides  have  a  plaited  sling,  so  that  they  can  be  carried  over  the  shoulder  ;  while 
in  New  Britain  we  find  rings  of  fibre  or  plaiting  which  are  said  to  be  mementos  of 
slain  enemies.      In   New  Guinea  and  New  Britain  we  meet  with  a  weapon  like  a 
"  morning  star,"  half  club,  half  axe ;  upon  a  sharpened  staff,  a  yard  long,  a  disk- 
shaped  stone  is  fitted  near  the  upper  end,  and  above  this  a  bunch  of  red  and  yellow 
feathers.     This  reminds  us  of  the  star-shaped  stones  with  a  hole  through  them 
found  in   Peru ;    besides  these,  clubs  occur  without  a  stone  ;   others  have  a  three- 
cornered  sharp-cut  head.     There  are  also  round  ones  of  black  heavy  polished 
wood,  with  engraved  ornamentation  about  the  head  ;  and  flat  ones  made  of  an 
equally  heavy  browner  wood  cut  into  the  shape  of  a  spoon  handle. 

The  Melanesian  axes  are  not  perforated,  and  remind  us  also  in  their  shape 
of  the  Polynesian  stone  blades.  They  are  often  beautifully  ground.  They  are 
often  fastened  upon  or  into  the  helve  by  regular  crossed  layers  of  rush  or  string, 
but  sometimes,  especially  ia  West  Melanesia,  the  helve  itself  is  perforated  and 
so  a  new  form  arises  with  the  blade  as  a  rule  narrower  and  rounder.  Besides 
stone,  shell  also  occurs  in  a  similar  shape  as  a  material  for  the  blade  in  Santa 
Cruz  and  New  Guinea,  in  the  Torres  and  Banks  Islands.  Iron  was  no  doubt 
occasionally  imported  before  the  European  epoch ;  and  in  western  New  Guinea 
intercourse  with  the  Malays  has  made  it  common.  How  quickly  it  takes  hold 
we  may  learn  from  the  fact  that  from  New  Guinea  to  Fiji,  up  to  the  present  day, 
no  article  of  trade  is  in  such  demand.  It  is  interesting  also  to  notice  that  even 
the  natives  who  have  only  been  for  a  few  years  in  frequent  contact  with  Europeans, 
imitate  the  iron  axe  in  wood,  even  to  the  trade  mark,  while  their  stone  axes  have 
lost  the  handle,  and  have  been  degraded  to  the  rank  of  pestles.      In  a  similar 


WEAPONS  AND  UTENSILS  FROM  MELANESIA  AND  MICRONESIA. 


3- 
J. 

7,8. 

9- 

lO,  n. 

12,   13. 

Obsidian  jAvelin :  Admiralty  Is- 
lands. 

Paddle :  Solomon  Islands. 

Chief's  spear:  New  Caledonia. 

Mancatcner :  New  Guinea. 

Lances :  New  Britain^  (The  handle 
of  S  is  made  of  bone,  probably 
that  of  the  cassowary.) 

Arrows :  Humboldt  Bay.  _ 

War  mask  :  New  Caledonia. 

Arrows :  Humboldt  Bay. 

Lances  :  New  Hanover,  (iz  of 
bamboo.) 


14.  Spear  with  j>oint  of  cassowary  bone: 

New  Guinea. 

15.  Mace    used    in  dances :    Bougatn' 

ville. 

16.  Sword-club :  New  Britain. 

17.  Club,   handle    covered  with   grass 

matting  :  Solomon  Islandsv 

18.  Obsidian   javelin  :    Admiralty    Is- 

lands. 

19.  Jade  axe  :  New  Caledonia. 

20.  Breast  ornament :  New  Caledonia. 
2X.  Necklace  of  cachalot's  teeth:  Fiji. 


22.  Breast    ornament :     Humboldt 

Bay. 

23.  Prickly  helmet :    Kingsmill  Is- 

lands. 1   <iue4a 

24,25,26.  Masks:  New  Ireland. '(sSwea 
as  decoration  of  a  tenmleji 
C7.  Mat  with  woven  patterh':  'Mort- 
lock  Island  in  the  Carolines. 

28.  Calabash    for    betel-lime  i   Ad- 

miralty Islands. 

29.  Frontlet :  New  Guinea* 

30.  Cap  :  New  Caledonia. 


Printed  try  the  Bibliograplusclies  Instttut.  leipzig 

WEAPONS  AND  UTENSILS  FROM  MELANESIA  AND  MICRONESIA. 


DRESS  AND    WEAPONS  OF  THE  MELANESIANS 


233 


way  must  have  arisen  the  musket 
shape  for  clubs  and  the  like.  In 
some  axes  the  blade  is  set  at  an  angle 
with  a  view  to  more  convenient  work- 
ing when  hewing  out  the  interior  of 
the  canoes.  Fijian  axes  are  in  the 
Polynesian  style,  but  not  so  large.  In 
the  New  Hebrides  and  the  Solomons 
we  have  smaller  wedge-shaped  rounded 
stone  hatchets,  sometimes  wider,  some- 
times narrower,  tending  in  one  place 
to  the  oval,  in  another  to  the  triangular 
shape.  In  Isabel  and  San  Christoval 
the  blades  are  from  2  J  to  8  inches 
long,  of  a  greenish  gray  colour,  tri- 
angular or  tongue -shaped,  with  a 
ground  edge.  The  tongue  and  oval 
shapes  appear  in  an  extreme  form  in 
New  Caledonia.  For  the  broad  and 
quite  circular  hatchets  jade  afforded 
the  material.  Artistically  pretty  pat- 
terns are  either  stitched  or  woven  into 
the  binding  of  the  handles.  New 
Ireland  has  ceremonial  axes  with 
beautifully  carved  helves. 

Bows  and  arrows  are  frequent  but 
not  universal.     With  some  gaps  in  its 


■ 


Bow  from  the  Solomon  Islands  (Berlin  Museum). 
Guinea — one-tenth  real  size  (Christy  Collection). 
(Godeffroy  Collection,  Leipzig). 


n.  Bow  and  arrows  from  North-west  New 
3.   Arrow-heads  from  the  Solomon  Islands 


,^4  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


distribution,  the  possession  of  the  bow  distinguishes  the  Melanesians  from  their 
neighbours  to  north,  east,  and  south  ;  yet  without  entitling  us  to  speak  of  the 
bow  as  a  characteristic  of  the  Papuan  race.  The  forms  are  like  those  of  Eastern 
"  Indonesia."  They  are  long  bows  with  strong,  slightly  bent,  often  fluted,  staves 
of  bamboo  or  palm-wood  ;  the  string  of  vegetable  material,  usually  rattan  is 
firmly  looped  to  the  ornamental  end,  and  fastened  in  New  Guinea  with  a  pad  of 
rattan  in  the  Solomon  Islands  with  resin.  In  New  Ireland  and  New  Caledonia  bows 
and  arrows  are  not  in  use  ;  but  in  New  Britain,  Port  Sulphur,  the  southern  islands 
of  the  Solomon  group,  the  New  Hebrides,  the  Banks  and   Loyalty   Islands,  they 

are  known,  and  in  some 
parts  are  common.  In  the 
New  Hebrides  especially 
they  are  highly  developed. 
The  arrows  of  the  Solomon 
Islanders  are  the  finest 
of  any.  They  are  made 
;  of  a  reed,  with  a  head  of 
hard   wood,  either  simply 

Dagger  of  cassowary  bone,  from  North-west  New  Guinea— one-fourth  real     ^,„^^^„^j        .„        „        t^nmf 

size.    (Christy  Collection.)  sharpened      to     a      point 

or  else  artistically  carved 
into  barbs  of  wood,  bone,  or  teeth,  in  imitation  of  the  spear-heads.  The  shaft  is 
decorated  with  elegant  hatched  work,  put  on  so  as  artfully  to  indicate  the  knots  in 
the  reed.  The  place  where  head  and  shaft  join  is  bound  with  bast,  the  point  fre- 
quently covered  with  a  yellow  wrapping,  it  is  said,  to  denote  that  it  is  poisoned. 
It  is  a  curious  instance  of  division  of  labour  that  all  the  beautifully  wrought 
arrows  of  the  Solomons  are  carried  from  the  little  island  of  Nissan  in  the  extreme 
coast  of  the  group,  together  with  pigs,  to  Buka,  and  thence  traded  off  for  boats, 
arrows,  and  earthenware.  In  Ugi  and  Biu  near  San  Christoval  arrows  are  used 
having  rings  of  palm-leaf  at  the  butt-end  of  the  shaft,  and  no  notch  to  take  the 
string.  In  the  Admiralty  Islands  small  arrow-like  javelins  are  hurled  with  a 
thong.  A  Melanesian  bow  of  uncertain  origin  in  the  Vienna  Museum  is  bound 
with  bast  at  both  ends,  to  prevent  the  string  from  slipping;  this  being  made  of 
t^\isted  liana  and  strengthened  in  the  middle  with  bark.  We  are  reminded  of  the 
rattan  pads  in  New  Guinea  bows. 

As  a  rule  the  arrow-head  is  smooth,  but  barbs  are  also  met  with  ;  in  fish-arrows 
as  many  as  four.  From  this  to  fish-spears  is  a  short  step.  Arrows  with  a  shell 
for  head  are  used  in  Malayta  to  stun  birds.  In  the  Banks  Islands  ornamental 
arrows  serve  as  a  medium  of  exchange.  Somewhat  exceptional  is  a  quiver  of 
bark  and  rattan -plait  from  New  Guinea.  Poisoning  of  arrows  is  believed  to 
occur.  In  the  New  Hebrides  cadaveric  poisons  and  euphorbia  juice  are  used, 
while  in  New  Guinea  the  Hattams  smear  their  arrow-heads  with  a  dark  brown 
vegetable  poison  called  umla ;  which,  however,  must  not  be  confused  with  the 
use  of  resin  as  a  protective  varnish  for  wooden  arrows.  Experiments  with 
poisoned  arrows  have  often  failed  to  produce  any  result,  and  in  many  cases  the 
"  poisoning "  must  be  regarded  only  as  a  magical  rite.  Deadly  effects  are  also 
ascribed  to  arrow-heads  of  human  bone,  and  orders  for  these  articles  are  still 
given  freely.  One  of  the  appliances  of  archery  in  the  New  Hebrides  is  a  wooden 
hand-guard  some  5  inches  broad.     This  is  slipped  over  the  wrist  like  a  ring,  and 


DRESS  AND    WEAPONS  OF  THE  MELANESIANS 


235 


protects  the  hand  from  the  recoil  of  the  bow-string.  The  spiral  liana  bandages 
a  foot  long  used  in  Buka,  and  the  plaited  "  braces "  covering  half  the  forearm 
found  on  the  Fly  River,  doubtless  have  the  same  purpose ;  while  the  braces  and 
greaves  of  plaited  bast  in  the  Anchorite  Islands  are  as  much  ornamental  as  pro- 
tective. 

The  natives  of  New  Britain,  the  New  Hebrides,  New  Caledonia,  and  Fiji,  use 
slings  for  missile  purposes.  In  New  Caledonia  and  Niue  the  carefully  wrought 
sling-stones,  of  a  pointed  oval  shape,  are  carried  in  a  net  bag,  fastened  at  the 


•     1.    Carved  dance-shield  from  east  New  Guinea — one-fifth  real  size.      2.   Shield  from  Teste  in  New  Guinea — 

one-tenth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection. ) 

lower  end  by  buttons,  and  hence  easily  emptied.  The  sling  is  a  simple  cord, 
doubled  in  the  middle  to  form  a  seat  for  the  stone.  It  is  unknown  in  New 
Ireland  and  the  Solomons  ;  while  in  Tanna  the  boys  use  slings  where  their  elders 
employ  bows  and  spears.  The  Fijians  have  also  short  throwing-clubs,  with  a 
deeply  shouldered  head,  like  the  induku  of  the  Kaffirs.  The  killing-clubs  of 
Malayta  are  stronger  weapons  of  the  same  kind,  having  a  carved  handle,  with  a 
lump  of  pyrites  at  the  lower  end  contained  in  a  web  of  bast.  To  this  class' 
belong  the  instruments  like  staves,  over  a  yard  long,  used  in  New  Caledonia, 
originally  nothing  but  pointed  cudgels  with  a  grip  for  the  hand. 

Even  before  the  age  of  iron,  knives  and  daggers  were  used  in  hand-to-hand  fight- 
ing, either  formed  of  broken-off  spear-heads  or  poniards  of  bone.     Those  from  the 


I.  Wooden  shield,  bound  w'nh  plaited  rattan, 
with  black  and  white  pattern,  froni 
Friedrich-^\'ilhelm■s  Harbour.  2.  Carved 
shield  from  Hatzfeld  Harbour.  3. 
Wooden  battle-shield  from  Astrolabe  Bay! 


f/J  4-  Wooden  battle-shield  from  Tro- 
briand.  5.  Motu-motu  shield  from 
I'reshwater  Bay.  One-twelfth  real 
size.  (Berlin  Museum  of  Eth- 
nology. ) 


DJiESS  AND    WEAPONS  OF  THE  MELANESIANS  237 

Admiralty  Islands  are  conspicuous  by  their  breadth  at  the  point  where  the  blade 
passes  into  the  artistically  engraved  handle.  The  so-called  daggers  made  of  ray- 
stings  are  really  files.  Not  uncommonly  the  handle  itself  is  pointed  like  a 
dagger.  The  poniards  of  bird-bone  (mostly  a  cassowary's  leg-bone),  frequent  in 
New  Guinea  and  the  neighbourhood,  are  simple  enough ;  the  thick  end  with  the 
joint  serves  as  grip,  the  other  being  split  and  worked  to  a  point.  Ornament  is 
rare,  and  limited  to  very  simple  scratched  work,  owing  to  the  hardness  of  the 
bone.  A  finish,  rare  among  races  in  this  stage,  is  given  by  wrapping  spear-heads 
and  knife-blades  in  sheaths  of  palm-spathe,  as  shown  in  the  cut  on  p.  230.  In 
conclusion  we  may  mention  the  caltrops,  used  in  Fiji  and  New  Guinea,  made  of 
sharp  splinters  of  bamboo  stuck  in  the  ground. 

The  employment  of  defensive  arms  is  limited.  In  Fiji,  the  New  Hebrides, 
New  Ireland,  New  Hanover,  and  the  Admiralty  Isles,  shields  are  wholly  absent. 
Among  the  Solomon  Islanders  we  first  meet  with  elongated  shields  of  plaited 
reed  or  bamboo  ;  the  reeds  placed  longitudinally  and  woven  together  with  fibre, 
while  decorative  patterns  are  woven  in  with  black  fibre,  and  pieces  of  mother-of- 
pearl  often  applied  in  regular  figures.  The  grip  and  guards  for  the  hands  at 
the  back  are  made  of  strips  of  palm-leaf.  An  extraordinary  development, 
reminding  us  of  Central  Africa,  is  found  in  the  shields  of  eastern  New  Guinea 
and  the  islands  to  the  east,  where  specimens  occur  of  great  size,  weighing  up  to 
22  lbs.  and  beautifully  decorated  ;  circular,  oval,  or  rectangular,  flat  or  hollow, 
made  of  wood  or  plaited,  together  with  the  narrow  Malayan  kind  from  Salawatti. 
The  ornamentation  is  original,  being  sometimes  symmetrical,  sometimes  the  reverse. 
The  narrow  Moluccan  shields  with  shell-trimming  have  been  imported,  but  have 
spread  no  further.  Cuirasses  are  found  on  the  north  and  south  coasts  of  New 
Guinea. 

No  race  possesses  such  a  luxuriance  of  fancy  in  the  case  of  weapons 
and  similar  articles  whose  purpose  is  narrowly  limited.  In  the  ceremonial 
axes  of  New  Ireland  the  stone  blade  completely  disappears  beneath  the  acces- 
sories ;  faces,  lizards,  birds,  remind  us  of  the  masks  coming  from  the  same 
region.  Social  relations,  religion,  festivals,  partially  explain  this  ;  they  presume 
the  existence  of  numerous  insignia  of  rank,  and  as  may  be  easily  understood, 
weapons  were  the  first  things  selected  for  this  purpose.  Much  feeling  for  form, 
much  industry  must  have  gone  to  the  making  of  the  decorative  axes  from  the 
D'Entrecasteaux  Islands,  shown  on  p.  182,  with  their  large  finely-ground  stone 
blades.  Without  a  comparative  survey  of  allied  objects,  it  would  often  be 
impossible,  even  in  the  case  of  those  which  by  reason  of  their  curves  or  sharper 
indentations  look  like  flaming  swords  or  horrible  instruments  of  torture,  to 
decide  whether  these  weapons  were  evolved  from  clubs,  paddles,  or  swords.  But 
when  the  passion  for  ornament  assumes  such  dimensions  as  we  see  in  the  repre- 
sentation on  p.  235  of  a  carved  wooden  shield  froni  New  Guinea,  we  are  reminded 
of  the  exuberant  fancy  of  nature  in  shaping  sea-monsters  or  creeping  plants. 
There  is  all  the  flavour  of  the  tropics  in  them. 


238  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


§  7.  LABOUR,  DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD   IN  OCEANIA 

Similarities  and  coincidences  in  labour  and  implements  of  labour — Hunting  and  fishing — Agriculture  and  its 
implements — Food  and  stimulants,  betel,  kava,  tobacco — Architecture  and  plan  of  villages 

As  good  wood-carvers  the  Micronesians  surpass  many  of  their  kindred  in  the 
East  Pacific  Islands.  They  know  the  trick  of  patiently  adding  to  their  dishes 
coat  after  coat  of  resinous  lacquer  till  a  durable  skin  is  formed.  Their  wooden 
ware  consists  of  plates,  bowls,  and  great  dishes,  all  painted  a  beautiful  red,  and  inlaid 
with  mother-of-pearl ;  flat  plates  and  deep  bowls  are  found  in  the  very  poorest 
abodes.  The  people  of  Fakaafo  carved  cylindrical  boxes  out  of  single  pieces  of 
wood,  with  covers  or  even  close-fitting  lids,  in  which  they  keep  their  fishing- 
tackle.  In  Pelew  every  native  is  expert  in  the  handling  of  his  little  axe  ;  but 
house  and  boat-building  is  carried  out  by  masters  in  the  craft.     This  multifarious 


Wooden  dish  from  Hawaii.     (British  Museum. ) 

dexterity  of  the  Micronesians  is  the  point  where  the  introduction  of  European 
goods  has  caused  the  greatest  falling  off. 

But  the  productions  of  Polynesia  also  testify  to  great  handiness,  and  expert 
craftsmen  hold  a  good  position.  In  Tonga  and  Samoa  carpenters  are  regarded 
as  artists,  and  form  a  guild  with  sacerdotal  rank.  The  perfection  of  the  methods 
of  labour  led  to  the  division  of  labour.  Thus  in  Hawaii  there  were  builders  and 
roofers,  boat -builders  and  carvers,  whose  productions  were  articles  of  trade. 
Armourers  and  net-makers  sometimes  also  formed  separate  trades.  Cook  notices 
the  chiefs'  «z/«-cups  as  the  most  remarkable  pieces  of  carved  work  in  "  Owhyhee '' ; 
they  are  perfectly  round,  8  to  12  inches  in  diameter,  and  beautifully  polished, 
and  have  little  human  figures  in  various  attitudes  as  supporters.  Quite  a  peculiar 
style  of  execution  appears  in  a  Hermes-shaped  idol  from  Hawaii,  now  in  the 
Berlin  Museum,  made  almost  in  life-size  from  the  wood  of  the  bread-fruit  tree, 
with  pegs  of  hard  wood  let  in  forming  dots.  It  is  quite  a  mistake  to  assert  that 
the  Polynesians  have  no  pottery.  The  Easter  Islanders  are  skilful  at  it.  On 
Namoka,  Cook  found  earthenware  pots,  which  seemed  to  have  been  long  in  use, 
and  the  Tonga  group  produces  porous  vessels.  In  Micronesia,  too,  pottery  has 
been  known  from  early  times. 


LABOUR,  DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


239 


Of  the  mode  in  which  the  bark-cloth,  known  as  tapa  or  gnatu,  is  prepared 
Mariner  gives  the  following  account :  A  circular  cut  is  made  with  a  shell  in  the 
bark  above  the  root  of  the  tree  ;  the  tree  is  broken  off,  and  in  a  few  days,  when  the 
stem  is  half-dry,  the  bark  and  bast  are  separated  from  it.  The  bast  is  then  cleaned 
and  macerated  in  water,  after  which  it  is  beaten  with  the  ribbed  club  on  a  wooden 
block.  This  beating  enlivens  a  village  in  Tonga  as  threshing  does  in  Europe. 
In  half  an  hour  the  piece  will  have  changed  in  shape  from  a  strip  almost  to  a 
square.  The  edges  are  snipped  with  shells,  and  a  large  number  of  the  pieces 
are  drawn  separately  over  a  semi-cylindrical  wooden  stamp,  on  which  the  pattern, 
worked  in  coco-fibre,  is  stretched  and  smeared  with  a  fluid  at  once  adhesive  and 
colouring.  On  each  a  second  and  third  layer  is  placed  ;  and  the  piece,  three 
layers  thick,  is  coloured  more  strongly  in  the  parts  which  are  thrown  into  relief 
by  the  inequalities  of  the  bed.     Others  are  annexed  to  it  both  at  the  side  and 


...^a 


Mats  from  Tongatabu.     (Vienna  Ethnographical  Museum.) 


the  end,  until  pieces  a  yard  wide,  and  20  to  25  yards  long,  are  produced.  For 
printing  their  kapa  (as  they  call  it)  the  Hawaiians  used  sticks  broadened  at  the 
end,  and  carved  with  figures  in  relief,  and  drew  lines  on  the  stuff  with  a  wooden 
comb.  Some  of  the  most  remarkable  patterns  of  Polynesian  tapa  from  that 
portion  of  Cook's  collection  which  is  now  at  Vienna,  are  represented  on  our 
coloured  plate.  The  tints  are  black,  white,  and  reddish  brown  ;  the  patterns, 
with  the  exception  of  a  dotted  one  which  seldom  occurs,  are  rectilinear.  European 
influence  has  unluckily  not  improved  them.  Mats  from  the  Gilberts  and 
Marshalls  show  a  special  pattern  for  each  island,^  displaying  a  relatively  good 
standard  of  taste.  The  women  of  Micronesia,  in  Ruk,  Mortlock,  and  Nukuor, 
weave  a  fabric  from  the  fibres  of  a  Musa  and  a  Hibiscus.  The  looms,  or  rather 
frames,  are  like  those  of  the  Malays.  The  Gilbert  and  Marshall  Islanders  are 
clever  at  weaving  mats  ;  the  inhabitants  of  Ponape  sew  their  mats  ;  the  women 
of  Ponap^  understand  basket-weaving,  while  the  ropes  which  their  husbands  make 
from  coco-fibre  are  famous.  From  the  Gilbert  Islands  come  charming  covered 
baskets  and  fans  of  different  sorts.  The  long  tough  fibres  of  the  PJiormium  ienax, 
which  grows  from  6  to  10  feet  high,  stimulated  the  Maoris  to  the  weaving  of 
mats,   affording  a   substitute   for  tapa  of  many  and   various   descriptions.       Bast 

'  [So  to  this  day  many  Alpine  valleys  have  their  own  pattern  for  home-spun  and  home-woven  cloth,  recog- 
nised sometimes  even  in  quite  remote  districts.] 


240 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Stone  pestles  from  Hawaii — one-fourth  real  size. 
Vienna  Museum. ) 


(Cook  Collection, 


mats  with  borders  of  feathers  woven  in  are  made  in    Samoa.      Cook   brought 
some  of  the  prettiest  plaited  work  from  the  Tonga   Islands  :   pouches,  wooden 
vessels  covered  with  plaited  work  and  the  like  ;  large  mats    are   designed  with 
stripes  of  dark-coloured  bast  and  adorned  with  trimmings  woven  on.      A  charac- 
teristic   Tongan    object   is 
the  fly  whisk,  which  is  at 
the  same  time  one  of  the 
king's  insignia.     The  fans 
of  plaited   bast  also  show 
pretty  shapes  ;  they  belong 
to  the  toilet  of  Polynesians 
of     all     ages.        A    great 
variety    of    straw    plaiting 
is   produced  at  present  in 
Hawaii.      Interesting   also 
are  the  netting  needles,  one 
of  which  exists  in  the  Cook 
collection   at  Vienna,  with 
a  net  of  human  hair  still 
wound  round  it.      A  strong 
wooden    needle,   some    i6 
inches    long,   with   an   eye,   was   used   for   the   same    purpose.      For   ornaments, 
mother-of-pearl  was  the  favourite  material  to  work  ;  it  makes  a  particularly  vivid 
impression  when  it  is  employed  in  glittering  natural  beads,  or  lies  in  broad  plates 
on  the  breast.    Tortoise- 
shell    is    split   into  discs 
of    extraordinary    thin- 
ness,      while      valuable 
chains    and    girdles    are 
composed  of  the  coloured 
opercula  of  certain  shells. 
The     laborious     putting 
together    of   them   from 
numerous    small    pieces 
is  a  particularly  favourite 
task.      Feather -weaving 
reaches  its  highest  pitch 
in  Hawaii.      One  might 
say  that  in   the  case  of 
the     hideous     feathered 
idols    of   the     Sandwich 
Islands  the  work  is  much 
'  too  fine  in  comparison  with  their  ugliness.     The  red  feathered  head  shown  in  the 
coloured  plate  of  Polynesian  ornaments,  with  its  wide  skate's  mouth  full  of  teeth 
and  goggle   eyes,  is  made  of  plaited  reeds  and  string,  into  which  thousands  of 
little  red  and  yellow  feathers  are  so  cleverly  worked  in  tufts  that  they  quite  con- 
ceal the   substratum.     The  red  feathers  on  the  Greek-shaped  helmets  are  from 
Depranis  coccinea,  the  yellow  from  Moho  fasciculatus. 


Earthenware  vessels  from  the  Fiji  Islands. 
Leipzig. ) 


(Godeffroy  Collection, 


LABOUR,   DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


241 


Among  the  household  utensils  of  the  Hawaiians  are  pestles  called  penu,  5  to 
8  inches  high,  made  of  basalt,  smooth  and  beautifully  worked,  with  a  flat  rubbing- 
sUrface  and  handles  of  various  shapes.  With  these  bread-fruit,  taro,  and  bananas 
are  ground,  on  a  block  having  four  feet  and  the  upper  side  slightly  hollowed. 
Primitive  oil  lamps  are  formed  of  conical  bowls  hollowed  out  in  lava.  Lastly, 
we  must  mention  the  preparation  of  the  turmeric  powder,  to  which  is  ascribed 
an  importance  amounting  to  sanctity  as  an  embellishment  for  body,  clothing, 
and  utensils.  In  Nukuor  the  roots  are  ground  by  four  to  six  women  in  special 
public  buildings,  they  are  then  allowed  to  stand  in  water ;  on  the  following 
morning  three  young  coco -nuts  and  three  old  soma  nuts  are  offered  by  a 
priestess  with  prayer,  after  which  the  dye  which  has  settled  down  in  the  water  is 


Carved  spatulas  for  betel-lime  from  Dorey  in  New  Guinea — two-sevenths  real  size.     (Christy  Collection 


collected,  baked  into  cakes  in  coco-nut  moulds,  wrapped  in  banana  leaves,  and 
hung  up  in  the  huts  till  required  for  use. 

The  industrial  activity  of  the  Melanes,ians  is  in  some  points  behind,  in  many 
others  in  advance  of  that  of  the  Polynesians.  Weapons  reach  their  highest 
development  in  the  Solomon  Islands  ;  the  artistically  beautiful  spears  of  Fauro 
have  been  spoken  of  with  full  justice.  New  Caledonia,  parts  of  New  Guinea, 
and  the  Admiralty  Islands  hold  in  many  respects  a  lower  position  ;  while  many 
natives  of  the  southern  and  central  Pacific  have  no  knowledge  of  pottery.  From 
New  Guinea  to  the  Fiji  Islands  vessels  are  freely  made  of  clay  mixed  with  sand. 
This  art  is  absent  in  New  Ireland  and  New  Britain,  but  reaches  its  highest  point 
in  Fiji.  Finsch  mentions  villages  on  Hall  Sound  in  New  Guinea,  where  one 
stock  understands  pottery  and  another  does  not.  On  the  north  coast  Bilibili 
does  a  thriving  trade  as  the  centre  of  this  industry  in  Astrolabe  Bay  by  exporting 
its  manufactures.  In  the  New  Hebrides  the  potter's  art  must  have  died  out ; 
in  Vate  not  one  complete  pot  is  now  to  be  found,  but  only  potsherds.     This 

R 


Utensils  from  Hawaii  (Arning  Collection,  Berlin  Museum) :  i.  Calabash-carrier  of  coco-nut  fibre,  .i,  3.  Cali 
bashes  with  pattern  burnt  in,  stoppered  with  conus  shells.  4.  Beaters  of  *n««7fl  wood.  5.  Stamping  stici 
for  tapa.  6.  Oil  lamps  of  lava.  7.  Decoration  for  chiefs,  a  sling  of  human  hair  with  carved  cachalol 
tooth.  8.  Necklace  of  similar  teeth  from  Fiji.  9-12.  Straw  plaiting,  probably  a  modern  importatio: 
1-8,   one-fifth  to  one-si.xth  ;  9-12,  one-half  real  size. 


LABOUR,  DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA  243 

retrogression  has  been  set  down  to  the  immigrating  Polynesians,  who  have 
introduced  the  custom  of  cooking  with  hot  stones.  The  highest  points  to  which 
the  earthenware  industry  has  developed  are  found  in  New  Guinea  and  the  Fiji 
Islands,  which  are  precisely  the  extreme  points  of  its  distribution.  The  Mela- 
nesians  do  not  know  the  potter's  wheel,  but  they  burn  their  vessels  cleverly  in  the 
open  with  dry  grass  and  reeds.  The  Fijian  tools  are  a  ring-shaped  cushion  (in  New 
Guinea  the  upper  part  of  an  old  pot),  a  flat  round  stone,  and  four  wooden  mallets. 
With  this  they  make  vessels  which  are  quite  as  symmetrically  formed  as  on  the 
wheel.  A  shining  glaze  is  given  by  rubbing  them  with  resin  while  still  hot. 
In  New  Guinea  pots  are  painted  black,  white,  and  red,  with  figures  of  birds  and 
fish  ;  the  shapes  have  extraordinary  variety.  The  cooking  vessels  are  simple  but 
elegant  urns,  sometimes  of  considerable  size.  Ornamented  covers  are  not  un- 
common, handles  at  the  side  are  never  found.  Among  the  smaller  drinking  vessels 
are  found  some  made  of  two  or  three  fastened  together,  with  separate  spouts,  and 
having  also  a  common  spout  in  the  hollow  handle  ;  also  oval  and  spindle-shaped 
flasks  with  one  opening,  and  boat-shaped  ones  with  two.  The  decoration  consists 
of  impressed  dotted  or  zig-zag  lines  and  ribs,  which  Finsch,  from  his  observations 
in  New  Guinea,  states  to  be  trade  marks.  Pots  the  size  of  casks  are  used  there 
to  keep  sago.  The  wonderful  wealth  of  forms  is  based  not  so  much  on  recollec- 
tion of  the  very  similar  South  American  shapes  as  on  immediate  imitation  of 
Nature.  Here,  as  among  almost  all  races,  the  task  of  making  pots  is  left  to  the 
women,  and  it  is  only  the  wives  of  fishermen  and  sailors  who  appear  to  devote 
themselves  to  it.  May  we  see  in  this  a  case  of  migratory  industrial  tribes 
resembling  the  smiths  of  Africa  ? 

Bark-cloth  is  prepared  in  all  the  Melanesian  groups.  Besides  the  paper 
mulberry,  which  is  cultivated,  the  following  trees  supply  the  bast :  Ficus  prolixa, 
F.  tinctoria,  and  Artocarpus  incisus.  The  loom  is  unknown  ;  the  woven  stuffs 
from  New  Guinea  found  in  our  collections  seem  to  be  a  Malay  importation. 
In  New  Guinea  they  merely  beat  soft  the  bast  stripped  off  the  india-rubber 
tree;  but  Fiji  produces  pieces  150  yards  long,  of  stuff  coloured  in  patterns,  by 
means  of  the  blocks  shown  on  p.  183.  It  is  hard  to  say  how  far  to  the  westward 
the  Polynesian  and  Fijian  method  of  preparing  tapa  extends,  since  it  is  an  article 
of  trade.  In  New  Britain  the  tapa  is  thicker,  and  obviously  more  coarsely 
manufactured  ;  nor  is  it  printed,  but  painted,  so  that,  as  in  New  Guinea,  the 
patterns  are  larger  and  more  continuous  throughout  the  stuff,  from  being  drawn 
and  not  impressed.  The  use  of  a  rule,  too,  permits  the  designing  of  wonderfully 
regular  squares. 

The  art  of  plaiting  is  diligently  practised.  For  the  coarser  mats  coco-nut  fibre 
is  employed  ;  for  the  finer,  pandanus  leaves  and  rushes.  An  intelligent  Fijian  can 
always  tell  you  from  which  island  a  mat  came.  The  coarser  kinds  are  used  as 
floorcloths  and  hangings  to  the  huts  ;  the  finer  as  sails,  or  sleeping-mats,  or  for 
children.  Floor-mats  are  5  to  8  yards  in  length,  sail-mats  100  and  more. 
Sleeping-mats  are  of  two  kinds — a  thicker  to  lie  on,  and  a  thinner  for  covering; 
one  of  the  most  valued  sorts  has  a  pleat  running  through  the  middle  of  each  strip 
of  plaiting.  Borders  are  worked  on  with  designs  in  darker  bands ;  white 
feathers  and  scraps  of  European  stuffs  are  woven  in.  One  of  the  prettiest 
productions  of  the  art  is  the  women's  liku,  a  girdle  woven  from  strips  of  the  bast 
of  the  wau-\x&&  (a  kind  of  hibiscus),  with  the  fibres  of  a  root  that  grows  wild,  and 


244 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


blades  of  grass.  Soft  mats  are  made  by  plaiting  the  stalks  of  a  fibrous  plant  in 
one,  and  removing  the  woody  portions  by  bending  and  beating.  Bags  ai 
baskets  are  admirably  woven ;  fans,  too,  are  made  either  of  palm  leav 
strengthened  at  the  edge  and  vandyked,  or  woven  from  bast.  But  superior  to  j 
these  are  the  string  and  the  cables — the  best  from  coco-fibre,  the  inferior  kin( 
from  the  bast  of  the  wau-tree.  In  the  Fiji  Islands  these  are  tastefully  made  t 
into  balls,  ovals,  spindles,  etc.  Comparison  with  New  Caledonia  shows  how  hig 
East  Melanesia  stands  in  this  art.  One  has  only  to  look  at  a  New  Caledonia  fa 
beside  one  from  Fiji.  But  in  New  Guinea,  again,  very  elegant  woven  articles  ( 
all  kinds  are  produced. 

Wood-carving  again,  of  which  we  have  seen  specimens  in  the  weapons,  stanc 


Wickeraork  (basket,  pouches,  and  fly-whisk),  from  Tongatabu.     (Cook  Collection, 
Vienna  Ethnographic  Museum. ) 

highest  in  East  Melanesia,  though  the  west  can  also  (as  seen  in  the  cut  on  p.  241] 
show  remarkable  work.  Individual  districts  are  poor  in  this  respect:  in  the 
Banks  Islands,  for  instance,  hardly  any  carved  human  figures  are  to  be  seen.  AH 
the  larger  groups  have  their  own  subjects.  The  most  wonderful  fancy  is  showr 
in  the  appendages  to  houses  and  boats.  In  these  simple  artists  there  is  a  strong 
tendency  to  pass  from  imitation  of  Nature  to  conventionalised  forms,  so  that  this 
imitation  is  never  very  successful,  especially  where,  as  in  Fiji  and  the  New 
Hebrides,  the  human  form  is  so  rarely  copied.  One  may  see  this  in  th£ 
representations  of  the  human  face,  in  which  the  nose  appears  as  a  line,  falling 
downwards  and  forwards  from  the  projecting  forehead,  with  strongly  distended 


LABOUR,  DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


245 


nostrils,  and  ending  in  the  mouth,  a  cross  line  sharply  cut  back.  In  some  New 
Guinea  masks  this  evokes  a  reminiscence  of  Ganesa  and  his  proboscis.  In  Fiji 
this  fancy  is  fused  with  the  far  better  proportioned  geometrical  designs  of  Tonga. 
In  San  Christoval  figures  are  better  drawn  than  anywhere  else,  and  in  Isabel  we 
find  really  artistic  engraved  work.  We  may  notice  also  one  characteristic 
production  of  Melanesian  art  :  the  ever-recurrihg  grotesque  heads  of  the  New 
Caledonians.  The  carved  head  with  large  nose  and  a  kind  of  bishop's  mitre  on 
the  top,  as  shown  on  p.  252,  is  a  type  which  we  find  in  a  larger  form  by  itself,  as 
an  idol.  This  religious  sculpture  shows  a  close  affinity  with  idols  from  other 
parts  of  the  South  Seas,  in  connection  with  which  we  may  recall  the  resemblance 
of  the  spear-heads  to  the  knobstick  of  the  Hervey  Islanders  as  shown  in  the  plate 
of  "  Polynesian  Clubs." 

To  the  same  branch  of  art  we  may  refer  the  carved  wooden  masks.     These 


Polynesian  fan  and  fly-whisks,  insignia  of  chiefs,  probably  from  Tongatabu.      (Cook  Collection. ) 

are  often  trimmed  round  the  lips  with  red  beans,  and  fitted  with  wigs  of  real 
hair ;  and  are  carried  at  dances,  dressed  in  feather  clothing.  All  these  carvings 
are  executed  with  firm,  strong  cuts  in  palm  wood.  Lines  in  relief  are 
coloured  black,  the  general  level  red,  and  depressed  parts  are  white.  From  New 
Ireland  come  examples  of  masks  made  by  sawing  off  the  face  of  a  skull,  just  as 
in  Peru ;  and  with  these  are  connected  the  ruddle-painted  skulls  of  New  Britain. 
The  flexible  tortoiseshell  was  formerly  the  favourite  material  in  south-eastern 
New  Guinea  and  in  the  Torres  Islands  for  masks  with  wild  arabesques  and 
appendages  like  trunks  and  combs.  Still  earlier,  indeed,  it  was  much  more  worked, 
being  used  even  for  hats  ;  now  they  have  got  to  use  tin  masks  in  New  Guinea, 
where  formerly,  in  Kaiser  Wilhelm's  Land  particularly,  a  vigorous  style  in  masks 
used  to  prevail,  corresponding  with  that  of  the  carved  woodwork  generally. 

In  trade  the  activity  of  the  Melanesians  is  by  no  means  insignificant,  stimu- 


246  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

lated  and  instructed  as  it  no  doubt  is  by  the  trading  of  the  Malays  in  New  Guinea, 
and  by  that  of  the  Tongans  in   Fiji.      It  was  owing  to  this  foreign  trade  that  the 
natives  of  Hood  Bay  came  unarmed  to  meet  MacFarlane's  schooner,  or  that  the 
Papuas    of   Ansus   have   become   honest   brokers  between  the    Malays   and  the 
mountain  tribes.     This,  too,  it  may  be  which  has  caused  the  Fijians  to  establish 
and  level  market-places  at  suitable  points  of  their  coasts  ;   while  the  Fijian  trading 
people  of  Levuka,  Mbotoni,  and  Malaki  have  formed  themselves  upon  the  example 
of  the  Tongans.     But  even  in  Central  Melanesia  there  is  a  lively  traffic.     Individual 
islands  of   the   New  Hebrides   manufacture  various  weapons  ;    thus  the  pointed 
weapons  of  Tanna  come  from  Immer.      In  the  Solomons,  Malayta  builds  canoes ; 
Bougainville  mints  shell-money ;   Guadalcanar  makes  rings  and  wooden  dishes. 
A  valuable  article  of  export  from  New   Ireland  are  cuscus-teeth,  perforated  for 
fillets  and  necklaces.     All  these  peoples  were  acquainted  with  trade  and  barter 
when  first  visited  by  Europeans  ;    among  some  of  them  iron  was  found,  which 
could  have  been  introduced  in  no  other  manner.     They  rushed  only  too  readily 
into  commerce  with  white  men.      When  the  Gazelle  visited  Blanche  Bay  in  1877, 
canoes  full  of  natives  eager  for  trade  swarmed  around  them  ;    but  in    1889  Rear- 
Admiral  Strauch  found  the  bay  almost  empty.     The  people  had  nothing  left  to 
exchange.     Money  transactions  play  an   important  part,  for  rank  and  dignity  are 
graded  upon  money.    In  New  Britain  its  purpose  is  served  by  disks  of  shell  strung* 
on  fibre  ;  in  the  Banks   Islands  by  the  points  of  shells  similarly  strung ;  in  the 
northern   New   Hebrides    by    long    narrow    mats    which    are   more    valuable   in 
proportion  as  they  are  older  and   more  smoke-blackened.      Sperm-whales'  teeth, 
which  are  valued  as  ornaments,  represent  large  capitals  in  Fiji  ;  just  as  do,  in  the 
Solomons,  necklaces  of  dolphins'  teeth,  and  armlets  formed  from  rings  of  shell. 
Santa  Cruz  treasures  red  parrots'  feathers  ;  and  Melanesia,  in  the  Banks  Islands, 
the  feathers  round  hens'  eyes.      Similarly,  in  former  times,  the  red  hair  below  the 
ear  of  the  flying-fox  was  used  as  money  in  the  Loyalty  Islands.     Accumulated 
capital  is  represented  also  by  the  masses  of  tapa,  of  which  the  Fijian  chiefs  are 
so  proud  that  on  festive  occasions  they  will  wind  200  yards  and  more  of  it  round 
their  persons.     What  is  even  more,  Codrington  tells  us  that  the  Banks   Islanders 
have  organised  a  regular  system  of  credit. 

In  Micronesia  the  position  of  currency  is  taken  by  stones,  bits  of  glass  or 
porcelain,  fragments  of  enamel,  and  beads.  In  the  Pelew  Islands,  whence  this 
seems  to  radiate,  seven  sorts  are  distinguished.  First,  brack  or  barak,  of  which, 
in  Semper's  time,  the  whole  group  did  not  contain  more  than  three  or  four  pieces. 
The  most  valuable  was  made  of  terra-cotta,  in  the  shape  of  a  bent  prism  with 
sides  ground  somewhat  hollow,  hard,  fine-grained,  and  with  almost  a  glassy  lustre. 
Kubary  gives  a  picture  of  a  brack  worth  forty-five  shillings — a  polished  fourteen- 
sided  polyhedron.  Second,  pangungau  or  bungau,  a  red  stone,  polished  like  brack, 
perhaps  jasper.  It  was  preserved  in  the  treasure-chest  of  the  King  of  Korror, 
or  buried  on  account  of  its  value  ;  in  Aibukit  the  wives  of  great  men  wear  it  on  their 
necks.  Third,  kalbukub  or  kalebukub,  agate  in  a  particular  shape,  or  in  some 
specimens,  hard  enamel.  Kubary  says :  "  Only  very  few  chiefs  possess  a  single 
kalebukub,  and  I  was  the  first  white  man  that  ever  had  one."  While  these  three 
kinds  of  money  go  only  among  the  chiefs,  the  four  others,  kaldoir,  kluk,  adelobber, 
olelongl,  circulate  among  the  common  people.  For  a  bit  of  the  last-named, 
consisting  of  fragments  of  white  or  green  glass,  you  can  buy  at  most  a  handful 


LABOUR,  DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


247 


of  bananas,  or  a  bundle  of  native  cigarettes.  In  the  kluk  class  are  found  polished 
enamel  beads,  the  production  of  a  much  higher  ability  than  any  with  which  we 
can  now  credit  the  people.  The  different  classes  are  not,  however,  very  sharply 
graded  ;  large  kluks  outweigh  inferior  kalebukubs.  With  the  exception  of  the 
most  valuable,  which  are  never  brought  out,  all  serve  equally  for  ornament, 
and  so  are  perforated.  Marks  of  rank  are  also  a  measure  of  property.  Thus  in 
Pelew  wealthy  persons  wear  as  an  armlet  the  klilt,  or  atlas  vertebra  of  the  rare 
Halicore  dugong.  The  purchase  of  the  klilt  is  a  political  requirement,  with 
which  every  new  chief  is  expected  to  comply.  Since  only  the  king  can  confer 
this.  Semper  calls  it  "  the  Order  of  the  Bone."  The  same  writer  heard  a  pretty 
story  at  Aibukit  in  Pelew :   Once  upon  a  time  a  boat  floated  up,  the  occupants 


Wicker  fans  from  the  Gilbert  or  Marshall  Islands  {British  Museum). 

of  which  were  the  seven  kinds  of  money.  They  had  set  out  from  their  own 
island,  Ngarutt,  to  seek  new  countries.  They  had  floated  about  in  the  ocean  for 
a  long  time  without  finding  what  they  wanted,  and  at  last  they  came  ashore  here 
on  Pelew.  Off  the  harbour.  Brack,  who  as  the  most  important  was  lying  stretched 
out  on  the  platform  of  the  boat,  told  the  next  in  rank,  Pangungau,  to  go  ashore 
and  have  a  look  at  the  island.  Pangungau,  as  lazy  as  his  sovereign,  gave  the 
order  to  Kalbukub  ;  he  passed  it  on  to  Kaldoir  ;  he  to  Kluk,  and  so  on  till  the 
much-enduring  Olelongl,  who  had  no  one  to  send,  had  to  go.  But  as  he  did  not 
return,  after  a  while  Brack  renewed  his  order.  This  time  Adelobber  went  off 
grumbling,  and  he,  too,  did  not  return.  Then  Kluk  was  .sent  to  fetch  them  both, 
but  he  also  stayed  on  the  island ;  and  so  it  went  on  till  Brack  was  deserted 
both  by  his  common  people  and  by  his  nobles.  "  So  he  went  to  fetch  them 
himself,  but  he  too  liked  the  look  of  our  town,"  said  the  narrator  ;  "  and  so  all  seven 
stayed  and  took  up  their  abode.  Brack  does  nothing  but  eat,  drink,  and ^sleep, 
and  the  higher  in  rank  always  sends  his  inferior  on  errands  ;  and  thus  it  is,"  con- 
cluded the  narrator  with  a  sly  laugh,  "  that,  just  as  with  us  men,  the  big  money 
sits  quiet  at  home,  and  the  smaller  has  to  be  smart  and  run  about,  and  work  for 
himself  and  the  swells  too." 


248 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


In  the  Carolines  we  meet  with  a  similar  development  of  currency.  Here  the 
most  frequent  unit,  called  fe,  consists  of  large  pieces,  like  millstones,  of  a  pale 
yellow  granular  limestone,  from  i  foot  to  2  yards  in  diameter,  and  weighing  up 
to  several  tons.  Their  value  depends  upon  their  size,  workmanship,  and  so  on, 
and  from  a  few  dollars  to  1 000  or  more.  Every  year  many  people  go  in  gangs, 
on  board  European  vessels,  to  Pelew,  where  they  find  the  raw  material.  Since 
the  working  requires  many  hands,  and  the  transport  is  expensive,  these  stone  coins 
usually  remain  the  property  of  the  whole  commune  ;  very  few  find  their  way  into 
private  hands.  This  kind  of  money  being  somewhat  unwieldy,  other  forms  of 
coin  come  into  use  for  commercial  purposes :  in  the  first  place  pearl-shells,  or  sar, 
strung  on  a  cord  ;  then  rolls  of  matting,  ambul,  of  coarse  work  and  various  value,  the 
largest  from  £7  to  ;^i  i.     A  further  form  of  money,  gau  (clearly  the  same  as  the 


Wooden  bowl  for  food,  from  the  Admiralty  Islands— one-eighth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection.) 

bungau  of  Pelew),  is  made  from  various  polished  stones  and  pieces  of  shells  twisted 
off,  which  can  be  strung  into  necklaces  till  wanted.  These  are  found  only  among 
the  chiefs.  Plaques  of  nutshells  and  seashells  strung  on  long  cords  of  coco-nut 
fibre,  black  and  white  alternately — an  arrangement  of  which,  either  in  pieces  of 
the  same  size  or  tapering  towards  the  ends,  the  art  of  Oceania  is  as-  fond  as  were 
the  ancient  Americans — form  money  and  neck  ornaments  for  the  Gilbert  Islanders; 
polished  beads  of  coco-nut  shell,  bracelets  of  tortoise-shell,  spondylus  armlets,  are 
currency  in  Mortlock.  How  necessary  a  currency  is  may  be  imagined  when  we 
know  that  the  Mortlock  Islanders,  though  they  weave  themselves,  import 
particular  kinds  of  woven  goods  from  the  Ruk  Islands. 

The  importance  of  these  new  coinages  is  not  only  economical — their  age  and 
their  rarity  gives  an  almost  sacred  character  to  some,  while  in  the  case  of  others 
the  difficulty  of  obtaining  them,  and  the  power  which  they  impart,  invest  them 
with  political  influence.  Offences  against  chiefs  can  often  only  be  expiated 
by  the  sacrifice  of  a  piece  of  money  which  represents  the  whole  wealth  of  a 
family  ;  and  then  the  family,  losing  with  it  the  credit  based  upon  it,  drops  several 


LABOUR,   DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


249 


steps  in  the  social  ladder.  Thus  money  is,  to  put  it  briefly,  next  to  religious 
tradition,  the  basis  of  political  influence  and  the  standard  of  social  position.  The 
coinage  also  plays  an  important  part  in  the  inter-tribal  festivals.  Every  island 
of  the  Pelew  group  gives  from  time  to  time  a  ruk,  at  which  the  representatives  of 
a  certain  number  of  allied  islands  bring  to  the  government  a  fixed  contribution 
in  native  money.  The  visiting  chiefs  pay  their  host  according  to  their  rank. 
Besides  this  mulbekel,  there  are  other  ruks,  in  which  only  the  small  places  of  a 
district  join  with  a  view  of  showing  friendship  and  good  fellowship. 

In  general  the  economic  life  of  the  Melanesians  gives  the  impression  of  a 
moderate  activity  under  favourable  natural  conditions.  Melanesians  from  the 
eastern  parts,  when  serving  on  European  plantations  or  on  board  ship,  show  an 


I.   Bamboo  drinking  horns  from  New  Guinea— one-third  real  size.     2.   Carved  gourd,  used  for  betel-box, 
from  the  Trobriand  Islands — one-third  real  size.     (Christy  Collection. ) 

amount  of  efficiency  exceeding  that  of  the  Polynesians.  In  New  Caledonia  the 
conditions  are  less  gratifying,  the  indolence  and  poverty  often  reminding  us  of 
Australians.  Both  sexes  take  part  in  labour.  Of  the  mode  of  life  in  New 
Guinea,  D'Albertis  has  drawn  a  picture  which  would  be  well  fitted  by  the  motto 
festina  lente.  The  natives  as  a  rule  get  up  early,  but  sleep  for  several  hours  in  the 
course  of  the  day.  When  their  toilet  is  completed  the  men  occupy  themselves 
during  the  cool  morning  hours  in  making  twine  for  their  nets.  The  women  clean 
the  huts,  fetch  water,  and  cook  the  first  meal,  which  is  eaten  in  common :  the 
men  trim  the  meat  cleverly  with  their  bamboo  knives  ;  then  most  of  them  leave 
the  village  and  betake  themselves  to  the  field — the  men  armed  with  their  spears, 
the  women  with  pouch-shaped  nets  and  carved  clubs  to  knock  down  dead  wood 
from  the  trees.  They  have  four  meals  a  day,  consisting  of  bananas,  yams,  taro,  sago, 
and  bread-fruit,  kangaroo,  and  even  meat  and  fishes.  But  they  also  eat  snakes, 
iguanas,  frogs,  the  grubs  of  various  insects,  fresh-water  tortoises,  and  lastly,  with 


250 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


n 


#1 


m 


TT13 


a 


(6>        ' 


Carved  bamboo  box  from  Western 
New  Guinea — three-fourths  real 
size.     (Christy  Collection. ) 


great  gusto,  a  fresh-water  mollusc  called  ebe,  the  shells 
of  which  they  use  for  the  most  various  purposes,  and 
therefore  always  carry  about  with  them. 

Both  Polynesians  and  Melanesians  display  an 
artistic  tendency  in  their  simplest  articles  of  daily  use. 
In  reference  to  New  Guinea,  Hugo  Zoller  says  :  "  You 
will  be  guilty  of  no  exaggeration  if  you  speak  of  a 
real  art  industry  among  the  Papuas "  ;  both  peoples 
have  attained  a  similar  point,  but  the  ornament  of  the 
Melanesians  is  richer  and  fuller  of  fancy.  It  is 
attractive  to  trace  out  how  and  in  what  their  produc- 
tions show  the  typical  differences  that  have  their 
roots  in  the  spirit  of  the  people,  or  rather  in  the  spirit 
of  the  race.  In  Papuan  ornament  the  predominant 
element  is  the  curved  line,  and  that  either  in  parallels 
or  freely  interlacing.  It  runs  especially  into  spirals, 
but  also  into  waves,  crescents,  ellipses ;  individual 
groups  of  ornament  are  separated  by  zig-zags  and 
straight  lines.  The  concentric  curve  is  always  recur- 
ring in  the  fantastic  beaks  of  their  ships,  or  in  the 
carved  shields,  paddles,  and  mallets  ;  it  has  a  decided 
advantage  over  any  attempts  at  copying  Nature.  In 
this  New  Zealand  resembles  New  Guinea  most ;  now 
and  again  efforts  towards  geometrical  arrangement  are 
seen  in  paddles,  the  blades  of  which  are  divided  by 
two  straight  lines  into  four  equal  portions,  variously 
coloured.  It  appears  still  more  in  the  wooden  moulds 
for  the  decoration  of  earthenware  vessels.  But  it  is 
in  the  east  of  the  island  world  that  it  may  claim  the 
highest  development,  especially  in  the  Tonga  and 
Samoa  groups,  which  herein  also  show  affinity. 

The  tools  with  which  artistic  work  was  done  were, 
before  the  introduction  of  iron,  exceedingly  simple. 
The  stone  axe  was  the  only  implement  for  shaping 
posts  and  planks,  or  for  felling  trees,  and  together 
with  sharp  shells  it  served  for  the  execution  of  the 
larger  ornament,  figures,  wooden  dishes,  etc.  Carved 
and  engraved  work  was  done  with  shells  and  rats' 
teeth  fixed  in  hard  wood ;  shells,  again,  and  the 
spines  of  sea-urchins  or  rays,  served  for  boring,  while 
smoothing  was  done  with  files  from  the  skin  of  a  ray 
and  pieces  of  coral  or  pumice-stone.  The  shell-axe 
was  as  a  rule  more  frequent  in  the  west,  the  stone 
axe  in  the  east ;  but  iron  has  created  an  equal 
revolution  everywhere.  Skilled  workmen  as  they 
were,  the  islanders  recognised  at  once  the  advantage  of 
iron  tools  ;  but  at  first  they  preferred  sheet  iron  in  the 
form  of  plain  hoop  iron  to  all  other,  since  it  could  be 


LABOUR,  DWELLINGS,   AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


251 


Chisel  and  shell  auger,  from  New  Britain.     (Berlin  Museum.) 


set  and  fixed  just  like  their  old  stone  axes.  It  was  only  in  the  environs  of  Geelvink 
Bay,  which  were  visited  by  the  Malays  from  Ternate,  and  by  Dutchmen,  that  the 
smith's  art  found  a  footing  in  pre -European  times;  otherwise  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  district,  as  far  as  Hawaii  and  Rapanui,  iron  and  the 
other  metals  had  either  never  been  known  or  had  disappeared  ;  Schouten  and 
Tasman  never  mention  them. 

Owing  to  the  larger  number  of  land  animals  in  Melanesia,  increasing  as  it  does 
westward,  hunting  still  plays  an  important  part.  In  New  Guinea  many  villages 
subsist  mainly  upon  it,  and  in 
districts  where  certain  birds  of 
paradise  are  found,  the  right 
of  hunting  them  is  reserved 
for  the  chiefs.  Meanwhile,  in 
the  Polynesians  we  have  a 
branch  of  mankind  to  whom 
not  only  all  the  influences  of 
pastoral  life,  but  also  the 
bracing  effects  of  the  chase, 
have  remained  unknown.  In 
Hilo,  indeed,  ducks  are  cap- 
tured by  means  of  floating  sticks,  fitted  with  baits,  and  weighted  with  stones, 
and  small  birds  are  caught  in  Tahiti ;  otherwise  there  is  no  hunting  of  any 
importance.  Who  can  say  whether  the  total  impossibility  of  finding  game  to 
provide  an  outlet  for  the  desire  to  slay  and  torture,  for  ambition  and  active 
impulses,  has  been  as  responsible  for  the  incessant  wars  and  the  cruelty  of  man 
towards  man  as  the  lack  of  larger  animals'  flesh  has  been  an  incentive  to 
cannibalism  ?  The  decay  of  projectile  weapons  must  in  any  case  be  connected 
with  this.  Fishing,  on  the  other  hand,  is  all  over  the  region  pursued  with  energy 
and  diligence  ;  it  takes  a  distinct  place  in  the  weekly  division  of  labour.  In  New 
Guinea  the  custom  is  to  fish  by  detachments  on  fixed  days,  and  to  distribute  the 
catch  equally  among  all  members  of  the  tribe.  The  appearance  of  a  shark  puts 
whole  villages  into  commotion  ;  in  time  of  peace  distinguished  persons  take  the 
command  of  fishing  expeditions  just  as  in  time  of  war  they  lead  troops.  The 
most  perfect  implements  that  the  Polynesians  generally  possess  are  employed  in 
this  work.  The  New  Zealanders  used  to  make  nets  500  yards  long,  requiring 
hundreds  of  hands  to  handle  them.  Hooks  of  every  size  are  manufactured  from 
birds'  bones,  tortoiseshell,  sea-shells,  and  hard  wood,  and  fitted  with  artificial  baits 
made  of  feathers  or  bright  pieces  of  shell.  Those  used  in  the  capture  of  sharks, 
a  popular  article  of  diet,  are  as  much  as  20  inches  long.  It  is  only  in  New 
Caledonia  and  some  parts  of  Western  Melanesia  that  the  fishing  is  limited  to  what 
can  be  done  with  arrows,  spears,  and  nets.  In  general  the  fish-hooks  of  the 
Melanesian  isles  are  excellent ;  even  white  men  prefer  them  to  the  European  steel 
hooks.  Boat-builders,  as  we  have  mentioned,  were  sacred  ;  but  the  manufacturers 
of  ropes,  fishing-lines,  and  fish-hooks  were  reckoned  at  least  as  important  persons. 
Property  in  these  articles  was  so  abundant  that  in  the  early  times  they  were 
frequently  a  medium  of  exchange  against  European  goods.  The  strongest  hooks 
were  composed  of  three  pieces  :  the  body  consisting  of  a  semicircular  finger-shaped 
piece  of  the  bone  of  the  cachalot  or  sperm-whale,  the  flat  under  side  of  which  was 


252 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


inlaid  with  mother-of-pearl.  On  its  upper  side  the  tortoiseshell  hook  was  fastened 
with  string — the  point  in  the  larger  specimens  being  pierced  for  a  string  to  hold 
the  bait.  When  these  tortoiseshell  hooks  became  blunt  or 
broken  they  were  able  to  do  further  service  in  necklaces.  We 
may  mention  here  the  simple  but  ingenious  Tahitian  arrange- 
ment for  carrying  fish — a  strong  cord  with  a  boar's  tooth  at  each 
end.  For  the  shark-fishing,  large  lumps  of  bait  are  used ;  for 
the  flying  fish,  an  obtuse-angled,  sharp-pointed  piece  of  bone. 

In    New   Britain    they   employ 


s^ 


j; 


also  standing  fish-traps  made 
of  plaited  work,  and  hand-nets 
which  are  held  from  a  moving 
boat  with  the  hilt  -  like  end 
dropped  into  the  water.  For 
the  same  purpose  the  F'ijians 
make  a  kind  of  floating  bow- 
net  from  the  long  stems  of 
climbing  plants,  plaited  through 
with  coco  -  palm  leaves.  In 
Trobriand  a  kind  of  rattle  of 
coco-nut  shells  half  cut  through 
serves  to  entice  the  sharks. 
Vegetable  poisons,  especially 
one  from  a  climbing  glycine,  are 
used  for  stupefying  the  fish ; 
sleepy  fishes,  such  as  sharks,  are 
said  to  be  taken  in  Fiji  with 
nooses.  A  great  number  of 
ceremonies  and  festivities  are 
connected  with  the  turtle-fishery. 
This  is  carried  on  by  means  of 
weighted  nets,  which  are  thrown 
into  deep  water  close  outside 
the  reef,  in  such  a  way  as  to 
form  a  semicircular  fence  and 
block  the  way  of  the  turtles 
returning  from  the  land.  The 
animals  are  driven  into  these 
nets  by  shouts,  but  the  main 
work  is  to  get  them  on  board. 
For  this  purpose  people  are 
required  of  conspicuous  dex- 
,   „. . .      ^       ,        ,  terity  and   strength  to  dive  at 

I.   J?ishing   float   from    the  Solomon   Islands— one-eiehth   real  size  *.u„        •^-      \  ,  i      i  • 

(Christy  Collection).     2.   Floats,  sinkers,  baler,  and  war^pears    *^^   ^'"t''^^'    moment    and    driVC 
from  New  Caledonia  (Vienna  Museum.)  '    the  animal  tO  the  Surface  j    whcH 

,  ,  it  is  fairly  on  its  back  in   the 

boat,  loud  blasts  of  the  shell  trumpet  announce  the  joyful  intelligence.      D'Albertis 
saw  skulls  of  turtles  hung  up  in  the  temple  of  Tawan  as  offerings.      In  stormy 


LABOUR,  DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


253 


weather  the  Hawaiians  put  out  in  their  little  fishing  boats  to  catch  dolphins, 
and  many  a  fisherman  going  too  far  in  pursuit  of  the  school — the  position  of 
which  is  indicated  by  the  birds  in  the  air — has  been  cast  away  and  lost. 

In  the  matter  of  breeding  animals,  the  first  mention  must  be  made  of  pigs. 
Wherever  these  occur  they  take  a  prominent  position.  They  are  pampered  : 
in  Tahiti  and  New  Britain  the  little  ones  are  suckled  by  women,  and  fed  by  old 
women  ;  or,  after  the  fashion  of  capons,  literally  stuffed  with  bread-fruit  dough. 
They  are  slaughtered  at  high  festivals,  and  reserved  exclusively  for  the  upper 
classes.     Next  to  the  pig,  the  dog  is  the  only  domestic  animal  of  any  size.     The 


A«ti%'4^f^ 


A  New  Zealand  trawl-net.     (Munich  Ethnographical  Museum. ) 

breed  is  a  small  one  resembling  the  breed  of  the  Negroes,  with  no  bark.  In  New 
Guinea,  New  Zealand,  Samoa,  and  the  Society  Islands  they  were  bred  for  meat, 
being  quite  useless  for  hunting.  The  common  fowl  is  the  most  widely  distributed 
of  all :  in  Tonga  they  ran  about  wild  in  flocks  ;  while  in  Easter  Island  they  were 
the  only  domestic  animal.  None  of  the  native  birds  have  been  regularly 
domesticated,  though  in  Easter  Island  the  sea-swallows,  sierna,  were  found  so 
far  tamed  as  to  sit  on  men's  shoulders.  In  Tongatabu  the  islanders  carried  pigeons 
or  parrots  on  sticks,  and  on  the  south  coast  of  New  Guinea  cockatoos  were  kept 
in  almost  every  village.     But  these  have  naturally  no  economic  importance. 

Agriculture  is  almost  everywhere  indigenous  ;  even  on  the  most  barren  coral 
island  at  least  a  few  coco-palms  are  cultivated.  It  is  most  highly  developed 
on  islands  like  Tonga,  where  soil  and  climate  are  not  too  favourable,  but  at  the 
same  time  not  niggardly,  so  that  labour  is  repaid  but  not  allowed  to  flag.     The 


254 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Society  Islands  and  Samoa,  more  prodigally  endowed  by  Nature,  stand  some- 
what lower,  and  the  inhabitants  are  more  indolent.  Lowest  of  all  are  poor 
islands  like  Easter  Island  or  the  smaller  Paumotus,  with  little  area  and  a  scanty 

rocky  soil.     Yet  even 


,si!n^- 


Shark-trap  with  wooden  float,  from  Fiji.      ( Berlin  Museum. 


there  plantains,  sugar- 
cane, sweet  potatoes, 
■;;;;■■  yams,  taro,  and  sola- 
i'l  num,  were  found  in 
cultivation ;  unpro- 
ductiveness is  the 
exception,  the  more 
favoured  regions  the 
rule.      Here   we  find 


fenced  fields,  terraces  with  earth  artificially  banked  up  on  steep  slopes,  and 
arrangements  for  irrigation,  especially  in  the  cultivation  of  taro,  trees  for  giving 
shade,  and  garden  flowers,  even  beds  laid  out ;  all  which  is  a  sign  that  the 
cultivation   of  the   soil   has  advanced  far.     Even  on  Easter  Island,  G.  Forster 


Smoked  fish  from  Massilia  in  East  New  Guinea — one-sixth  real  size.     (BerUn  Museum) 

found  an  irrigation  trench  a  foot  deep  around  every  plantain,  while  in  Tonga  he 
walked  in  an  avenue  of  four  rows  of  coco-palms  2000  paces  in  length, 
diligently  weeded  and  manured.  Cultivation  is  correspondingly  dense;  one 
of  the  special  advantages  of  Samoa  to  which  Pritchard  draws  attention  is  that 
you  come  every  mile  or  two  upon  a  grove  of  coco-palms  or  bread-fruit;  and 
the  first  visitors  to  Tongatabu  depicted  it  as  one  great  garden.  In  this 
way  their  descriptions  excited  among  their  contemporaries  the  liveliest  longing 
for  these  fortunate  islands.  In  Micronesia,  where  fishing  prevails,  agriculture  for 
the  production  of  the  chief  article  of  food,  taro,  is  carried  on  only  in  the  larger 
islands,  such  as  the  Pelews.  The  men  cultivate  betel,  tobacco,  and  turmeric, 
while  the  women  of  all  classes,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  even  kings' 
wives,  make  it  a  point  of  honour  to  keep  their  ifaw- patches  in  the  finest 
condition.  The  task  of  the  men  is  only  to  attend  to  the  artificial  irrigation  of 
the  plantations,  which  are  in  low  marshy  places,  and  to  set  out  the  young  plants ; 
the  women  have  to  keep  the  ground  weeded,  and  take  the  plants  up  as  required. 
Besides  taro,  the  New  Zealanders  cultivate,  among  crops  originally  introduced 
from  the  north,  the  sweet  potato— this  with  religious  ceremonies— and  the  bottle- 


LABOUR,  DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


255 


gourd  ;  and  of  native  plants  a  fern  with  edible  rhizomes,  and  the  New  Zealand 
flax  {phormium  tenax). 

In  western   Melanesia  agriculture  is  on  the  whole  less  advanced.     Great  part 
of  New  Guinea  is  uncultivated.     Yet  even  here  in  individual  cases  it  stands  high. 


Cuttle-fish  baits  from  the  Society  Islands,  two-fifths  real  size.     (Christy  Collection,  Berlin  Museum. ) 

In  the  south-east  among  the  Kerepunus,  and  on  Astrolabe  Bay  in  the  north,  the 
fields  are  kept  like  gardens  ;  the  soil  being  turned  by  men  in  a  long  row  armed 
with  pointed  sticks,  and  then  levelled  by  the  women  and  planted  with  bananas, 
sugar-cane,  yams,  etc.,  in  long  strips.     Clearing  and  fencing  is  done  by  all  in 


Polynesian  pots  and  implements  (the  two  calabashes  for  betel-lime,  from  the  Admiralty  Islands) ; 
also  a  shell  horn— one-fifth  real  size.     (Christy  Collection.) 

common,  in  exemplary  style.  If  the  arable  lands  are  far  off,  little  huts  are  put 
UP  for  temporary  occupation.  Among  the  western  islands,  New  Britain  and  the 
New  Hebrides  deserve  the  highest  praise.  There,  as  well  as  in  the  Solomons 
the  extensive  plantations  lie  always  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  habitations,  and 
frequently  are  arranged,  for  the  sake  of  irrigation,  on  terraces  one  above  another. 


256 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


On  the  steep  slopes  of  Meralava,  in  Aurora,  and  in  other  islands,  field  rises  above 
field,  and  every  patch  gets  the  full  benefit  of  the  irrigation.  As  in  Newr  Guinea, 
so  in  Nevir  Caledonia,  the  nutritious  bread-fruit  of  the  east  is  unknovs^n,  which 
implies  a  serious  deficiency  in  the  food-supply  of  the  people.  In  little  Mota 
(Banks  Islands),  on  the  other  hand,  Codrington  found  sixty  names  for  varieties 
of  bread-fruit,  and  eighty  for  yams.  But  the  agriculture  of  the  Fiji  Islands  takes 
a  higher  rank  than  even  that  of  Polynesia.  Here  more  than  anyw^here  the  taro 
or  dalo,  unquestionably  the  most  nutritious  of  all  Melanesian  food-plants,  is  the 
staff  of  life.  One  kind  is  grown  on  dry  ground,  but  the  normal  sort  is  the 
Polynesian  ;  for  which  the  soil    is   worked   into    a   mortar-like   consistency,  and 


Covered  vessel  in  shape  of  a  bird,  inlaid  with  shell,  from  the  Pelew  Islands.     (British  Museum.) 

deeply  trenched,  before  receiving  the  young  plants.  After  the  yam,  which 
stands  second,  the  next  root-crop  to  be '  mentioned  is  the  anai  or  masave,  the 
sweet  root  of  the  ii-iree.  {Draccsna  terminalis  or  cordyline  ti).  In  a  few  districts 
only,  as  Leper  Island,  is  the  banana  the  chief  fruit ;  though  the  Fijians  have 
thirty  varieties  of  it.  Sugar-cane,  and  the  yakona  plant,  from  the  chewed  roots 
of  which  the  intoxicating  drink  kava  is  prepared,  are  planted  in  great  quantity. 
We  find,  too,  whole  nurseries  of  the  paper-mulberry,  masi  or  malo,  from  the  bark 
of  which  the  material  called  tapa  is  made.  In  the  New  Hebrides  and  Banks 
Islands  no  single  village  is  without  its  flowers  and  aromatic  herbs.  In  all  the 
archipelagos  of  the  equatorial  Pacific,  the  coco-palm  is  one  of  the  most  important 
plants.  Even  on  uninhabited  islands  it  is  sedulously  tended  ;  and  it  forms,  with 
the  fruit  of  the  pandanus,  the  chief  food  of  the  low  islands,  as  the  Paumotus, 
which  are  poor  in  vegetables. 


LABOUR,   DWELLINGS,   AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


257 


On  how  insecure  a  basis,  however,  the  life  of  these  islanders  rests  is  shown 
by  the  only  too  frequent  times  of  dearth.  Among  articles  of  diet  the  chief  place 
is  taken  by  vegetable  products  and  the  spoils  of  fishing,  and  great  groups  of 
these  races  are  wholly  vegetarian.  Dietary  laws  forbid  the  eating  of  beasts  or 
plants  which  are  atuas  of  the  tribe.  Where  pigs  and  dogs  exist,  these  delicacies 
are  reserved  for  the  upper  classes  or  for  festive  occasions.  Contrary  to  our  usual 
ideas  of  the  diet  of  these  tribes,  the  fat  and  blood  of  the  pig  are  among  the 
dainties  served  at  the  banquets  of  the  chiefs.  "  No  Greenlander  was  ever  so  sharp 
set  upon  train-oil  as  our  friends  here,"  says  Cook,  of  the  Maoris  ;  "  they  greedily 
swallowed  the  stinking  droppings  when  we  were  boiling  down  the  fat  of  dog-fish." 
Rats  are  eaten  as  a  rule  only  by  the  common  people,  in  Tahiti  only  by  women. 
Most  birds  are  reckoned  sacred.  Among  vegetable  articles  of  food  the  chief 
is  bread-fruit ;  .then  taro,  yams,  and  sweet  potatoes.  Bread-fruit  is  sometimes 
eaten  fresh-baked,  sometimes  leavened ;  Fiji  being  the  only  part  of  Melanesia 
where  the  latter  is  usual.  The  taro  is 
washed  to  remove  the  acrid  part,  and  the 
flour  that  remains  as  a  sediment  is  kneaded. 
By  letting  the  dough  ferment  the  Poly- 
nesians obtain  poi,  their  favourite  food, 
resembling  slightly  sour  porridge.  It 
will  keep  for  a  long  time  ;  and  baked  yam 
will  keep :  for  a  year.  In  Tahiti  the 
sweet  potato  is  eaten  only  so  long  as 
there  is  no  ripe  bread-fruit.  We  have 
already  mentioned  the  coco -nut,  and  its 
great  value  as  a  food  supply.  In  the 
smaller  Polynesian  Islands  the  entire 
stock  of  vegetable  food .  is  provided  by 
coco  and  pandanus  -  palms,  with  taro. 
Kababo,  or  pandanus -meal,  dried  and 
roasted,  forms,  when  pressed  together, 
a  valuable  preserve.  Here  we  may  men- 
tion the  famous  earth-eating  habit  of  the 
people  of  New  Guinea  and  New  Caledonia. 


Another  vessel  of  the  same  material. 
Museum. ) 


(British 


The  truth  of  it  is  that  the  former 
eat  great  quantities  of  a  greenish  steatite,  the  latter  of  a  clay  containing  iron 
and  magnesia,  which  is  kept  in  dry  cakes  with  a  hole  through  them.  They  do 
not  do  it  for  hunger,  but  for  pleasure,  and  after  copious  meals. 

In  regard  to  the  manner  of  preparing  all  these  food-materials,  it  is  a  significant 
fact  that  most  of  the  Polynesians  and  many  of  the  Melanesians  possess  no 
earthenware  vessels,  and  still  less  any  of  metal.  They  boil  their  water  in  wooden 
vessels  by  dropping  in  red  hot  stones ;  but  they  do  not  use  this  for  cooking,  only 
to  make  shells  open  more  easily.  Cooking  with  hot  stones  was  formerly  more 
frequent,  but  has  become  unusual  ;  coco-nut  milk  is  boiled  in  the  fresh  shells  over 
the  fire.  The  most  common  method  is  to  lay  the  food  between  hot  stones.  It 
indicates  a  certain  progress  when  we  find  the  stones,  after  heating,  sprinkled 
with  water,  the  whole  covered  with  leaves  and  earth  and  so  left  to  itself.  Since 
the  days  of  Cook  and  Forster  many  Europeans  have  extolled  meat  steamed  in 

Simple  roasting  or  broiling  at  an  open  fire  is 
s 


this  way  far  above  our  roasts. 


THE  HISTORY  UF  MANKIND 


pronounced  a  method  of  dressing  fit  only  for  persons  in  a  hurry  or  for  slaves, 
-Cooking  is  the  duty  of  the  men  in  Pelew,  of  the  women  in  the  Mortlocks.* 
European  travellers  in  Hawfaii  have  been  amazed  to  see  a  fowl  tied  up  in  a 
bundle  with  a  hot  stone,  to  be  produced  cooked  at  the  next  halt.  They  eat  in 
the  open  air,  sitting  on  the  ground,  which  is  strewn  with  fresh  leaves  ;  hot  food 
being  carried  wrapped  in  banana  leaves.  The  Polynesians  use  no  salt,  but 
season  their  complicated  fish  and  meat  dishes  with  sea-water.  The  art  of  salting 
pig-meat  is  said  to  be  known  in  Hawaii.  In  many  parts  of  Melanesia  salt  is 
only  known  as  a  delicacy.  To  carve  and  distribute  the  meat  is  not  held  un- 
worthy of  the  highest  chiefs.  Special  formalities  are  observed  in  eating;  yet 
within  the  limits  of  these  there  is  room  for  an  unseemly  degree  of  avidity.  In 
most  places  men  and  women  must  not  eat  together,  nor  either  partake  of  what 
the  other  has  prepared.  With  almost  equal  anxiety  they  avoid  eating  out  of 
the  same  vessel  with  another.  In  ordinary  times  they  take  two  meals  in  the 
day ;  but  if  a  great  quantity  of  food  has  been  provided,  they  sit  at  it,  with 
occasional  interruptions  for  dancing,  play,  and  so  on,  till  it  is  all  devoured. 

Among  agricultural  implements  the  chief  place  is  taken  by  the  primitive 
stick,  cut  slanting  at  one  end  like  a  pen,  and  of  about  the  length  of  a  hay-fork. 
The  men  who  break  up  the  ground  with  these  are  followed  by  boys  carrying 
sticks  to  break  the  loosened  clods  still  smaller,  and  at  last  the  earth  is,  if  neces- 
sary, rubbed  fine  with  the  hands,  and  piled  up  in  little  mounds,  in  which  the 
seeds  or  cuttings  are  placed.  Among  the  Motus  of  New  Guinea  six  or  seven 
men  stand  one  behind  another  with  a  light  pointed  beam,  which  they  run  into 
the  ground,  heaving  up  at  the  word  of  command  a  huge  clod  of  earth.  Weeds 
and  brushwood  have  in  many  places  previously  been  removed  by  means  of  a 
narrow  paddle-shaped  sharp-edged  tool  of  hard  wood,  about  2  feet  long.  Some 
weeks  later  the  roots  are  grubbed  up  with  a  kind  of  hoe,  which  the  workman 
uses  in  a  stooping  attitude,  almost  level  with  the  ground. 

The  only  original  stimulant  used  in  the  eastern  islands  is  the  kava  or  ava, 
the  fermented  juice  from  the  chewed  roots  of  Piper  methysticum.  The  first 
Europeans  considered  that  the  use  of  it  had  increased  rapidly.  Even  at  that  time 
it  was  productive  of  great  mischief,  causing  dimness  of  sight  and  weakness  of 
memory.  Yet  there  are  islands  where  temperance  prevails,  and  even  in  Melanesia 
it  is  partaken  of  in  very  varying  amounts.  Some  drink  it  like  coffee,  others 
carouse  from  gigantic  bowls  inlaid  with  mother-of-pearl.  The  mode  of  preparing 
kava  is  as  follows :  a  shallow  bowl  of  hard  wood  resting  on  three  short  feet  is 
placed  on  the  ground,  girls  and  women  lie  in  a  circle  round  it,  break  off  small 
pieces  of  the  dried  kava  root,  put  them  in  their  mouths,  and,  when  thoroughly 
chewed,  spit  them  into  the  bowl ;  water  is  added,  the  drink  is  stirred,  and  the 
beverage  is  ready.  In  Fiji  it  is  said  that  this  method  of  preparation  comes  from 
Polynesia,  and  that  formerly  the  pieces  were  cut.  Coco-nut  shells,  or,  as  in 
Tonga,  four-cornered  cups  made  of  plantain  leaf,  serve  as  drinking-vessels,  and 
are  drained  with  much  enjoyment.  The  drink  is  a  dark  grey  dirty-looking  brew 
of  a  by  no  means  pleasant  bitter  taste.  In  the  kava  carouses  of  the  Arii  in 
the  Society  Islands,  all  the  excesses  of  intoxication  were  to  be  observed  up  to 
the  point  of  homicide  and  murder.  The  mode  of  calling  together  those  who 
were  to  chew  and  those  who  were  to  enjoy  the  drink  ;  the  songs  which  accompany 
the  pressing  out  of  the  chewed  root ;  the  prayers  when  the  water  was  poured  on ; 


LABOUR,  DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA  259 

and,  finally,  the  song  which  celebrates  the  chiefs  first  draught,  all  point  to  an 
idea  of  sanctity  as  connected  with  this  indulgence.  Thus  in  Vatd  kava  is  drunk- 
only  in  the  worship  of  the  spirits  who  dispense  health  ;  in  Tanna  it  is  drunk  as  in 
Polynesia,  women  being  excluded,  and  a  special  place  allotted  to  it.  Kava  drink- 
ing becomes  less  as  we  go  westward,  and  therefore  is  perhaps  of  Polynesian 
origin.  At  any  rate  this  kind  of  pepper  was  probably  introduced  into  some 
Melanesian  Islands  from  the  east.  The  people  of  New  Guinea  also  drink  kava 
or  kau,  but  the  practice  is  not  universal,  and  takes  place  only  on  festive  occasions. 

The  drink  is  not  unknown  in  Micronesia  ;  it  is,  however,  obtained,  not  by 
chewing,  but  by  crushing  the  roots.  The  mass,  after  damping,  is  packed  in  strips 
of  hibiscus  and  wrung  out.  In  Ponapd  ava,  which  once  was  sacred,  is  now  drunk 
like  water.  In  Melanesia  also  the  preparation  by  crushing  is  found.  Among 
many  Polynesian  races  kava  afforded  the  basis  for  poisonous  drinks  ;  a  popular 
poison  among  the  Hawaiians  was  made  by  mixing  with  it  the  leaves  of  Tephrosia 
piscatoria.  Daphne  indica,  and  the  common  gourd  Lagenaria.  That  the  consump- 
tion of  spirituous  drinks  was  originally  almost  or  quite  unknown,  is  distinctly 
asserted  in  regard  to  New  Zealand,  New  Caledonia,  the  Loyalty  Islands,  Waigiu, 
and  Humboldt  Bay.  In  a  few  places,  as  Guadalcanar  and  New  Georgia,  a  kind 
of  palm  wine  is  made,  the  juice  being  drawn  off  by  incisions  in  the  unopened 
flower.  We  find  the  same  in  Micronesia,  where  the  people  of  Ponap6  even 
distilled  a  kind  of  brandy  from  palm  wine.  The  plague  of  brandy  imported 
from  Europe  has,  under  the  influence  of  the  missions,  happily  been  less  diffused 
in  the  smaller  islands  than  in  Australia  and  New  Zealand. 

Coco-nut  juice  serves  as  the  ordinary  drink,  the  nut  is  held  high,  and  the 
juice  allowed  to  flow  into  the  mouth,  and  the  same  mode  of  drinking  is  customary 
from  other  vessels  ;  to  touch  the  nut  with  the  mouth  is  considered  unmannerly. 
As  kava  came  in  from  the  eastward,  so  did  tobacco  and  betel  from  the  west. 
We  can  indicate  New  Guinea  and  its  neighbourhood  as  the  central  point  of  both. 
Both  travel  in  close  conjunction,  tobacco  having  spread  with  extraordinary  rapidity  ; 
for  instance,  in  a  few  years  it  has  overrun  the  Admiralty  Islands  and  New  Ireland. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  eighties  the  limit  of  tobacco  passed  exactly  through 
Normanby,  now  it  is  cultivated  on  all  the  larger  groups  of  the  Pacific  Islands, 
and  in  many  places  it  already  grows  wild.  In  east  and  south-east  New  Guinea 
it  is  smoked  with  a  piece  of  bamboo,  through  the  small  opening  of  which  the 
smoke  is  drawn  from  the  bowl  and  swallowed  ;  this  intoxicating  practice  is  known 
as  bau-bau.  In  the  Woodlark,  Trobriand,  and  Laughlan  groups,  the  natives  pro- 
fess to  have  smoked  through  a  reed  before  the  arrival  of  the  Europeans.  This 
was  filled  with  the  smoke  from  the  leaves  of  a  certain  bush,  and  then  passed 
round  the  circle  till  it  was  emptied.  This  reed  has  been  mistakenly  regarded 
as  a  weapon.  The  Papuas  are  great  smokers,  and  A.  B.  Meyer  mentions  as  a 
peculiarity  of  theirs  that,  after  puffing  out  the  smoke  through  nose  or  mouth, 
they  form  their  mouths  to  a  point,  and  draw  in  the  air  with  a  noise,  so  that  he 
could  always  hear  when  a  Papua  was  smoking  in  his  neighbourhood.  Clay  pipes 
have  long  been  manufactured  at  various  spots  among  the  islands,  and  the  Maoris 
understood  how  to  carve  them  of  stone  in  the  same  artistic  fashion  as  is  shown 
in  their  most  original  utensils.  Betel  extends  as  far  as  Tikopia,  further  east  if 
has  been  diffused  in  quite  recent  times  by  means  of  labourers  who  have  emigrated 
•or  been  exported  as  far  as  Fiji,  but  is  not  yet  found  in  the   New  Hebrides  or 


26o 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


^-Ms^ 


UsmA . 


'0% 


\ 


New  Caledonian  hut  (Qu.  sacred)  after  a  model ;  doorposts  and  roof-ornament 
supplied  from  originals  in  the  Berlin  Museum. 


the  Banks  and  Torres  Islands.  Where  it 
cannot  be  got,  as,  for  instance,  in  Isabel, 
they  use  an  aromatic  bark.  The  western 
Melanesians  all  chew  betel.  Wherever 
it  occurs  the  teeth  are  black,  and  the 
traces  of  red  saliva  speak  of  the  existence 
of  natives  even  in  the  desolate  Finisterre 
mountains.  Betel  nuts  are  given  as  pre- 
sents to  guests  ;  areca  nut,  pepper  leaves, 
and  lime  are  used  just  as  among  the 
Malays,  and  betel  pepper  is  carried  in 
long  ornamented  gourds  with  a  small 
opening  through  which  to  introduce  the 
long  narrow  spoon.  Betel  boxes  and 
spoons  are  among  the  most  sedulously 
wrought  utensils  in  New  Guinea  and  its 
neighbourhood.  It  is  curious  that  the 
words  for  these  requisites  in  the  Admiralty 
Islands  are  very  unlike  the  Malay  names, 
while  those  of  the  Yap  Islanders  who 
belong  to  the  west  Micronesians,  among 
whom  betel  chewing  is  rare,  remind  us 
of  those  used  in  the  Admiralty  Islands. 

The  houses  of   Oceania   show  Malay 
affinities.      They    are    four-cornered    and 
most  frequently  rectangular,  long  and  low. 
The    long    roof    of    palm-leaves, 
rushes,  or  boughs,  often  resembles 
an  inverted  boat  or  an  elongated 
bee -hive.        The     ridge     is     car- 
ried by  lofty  poles,  and 
the     eaves     rest     upon 
shorter  posts,  the  walls 
consisting    of   reeds   or 
mats      fixed      between 
them.     In  carefully  built 
houses  the  roof  is  formed 
of    rafters    and     sound 
timbers,     covered    with 
mats     of    banana  -  leaf.. 
The  larger  houses  stand 
on  stone  foundations  in 
the  shape  of  raised  plat- 
forms.     In      Polynesia, 
and  the  extreme  east  of 
Melanesia,        especially 
Fiji,     the     houses     fre- 
quently stand  on  mounds. 


LABOUR,   DWELLINGS,   AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


26r 


of  earth  3  to  6  feet  high,  the  height  being  proportioned  to  the  owner's  claims 
to  importance.  In  Samoan  huts,  the  roof,  made  of  round  bent  timbers  thatched 
with  sugar-cane  or  maize -leaves,  rests  upon  a  number  of  shorter  posts,  the 
intervals  between  them  being  filled  up  with  blinds  of  plaited  palm -leaf.  In 
the  Friendly  Islands  the  plan  departs  curiously  from  the  rectangular,  the  section 
below  the  boat-shaped  roof  being 
pentagonal ;  and  the  same  in 
Easter  Island.  In  Hawaii  the 
different  character  of  the  material 
has  led  to  a  variation  in  style. 
The  boat -form  is  maintained  for 
the  roof,  and  the  frame -work  is 
the  same  ;  but  the  roof  itself,  made 
of  thick  layers  of  grass,  is  carried 
down  to  the  ground,  creating  real 
grass  huts.  In  the  Melanesian 
Islands  this  form  is  retained  with 
few  exceptions.  We  find  it  in  New 
Guinea,  where  the  huts  are  on  posts 
forming  an  oblong  of  1 3  to  3  3  feet 
by  13  to  22  feet ;  and  in  the 
Solomons,  where  the  average  length 
of  the  family  dwellings  is  45  to 
70  feet,  with  a  breadth  of  nearly 
40.  Here  the  roof,  projecting  and 
supported  on  posts,  is  thatched 
with  sago  and  coco-palm  leaves, 
and  the  side  walls,  about  3  feet 
high,  are  woven  in  pretty  patterns 
of  dark  and  light  bamboo.  Often 
a  veranda  is  built  on  to  the  narrow 
side  where  the  entrance  is,  and 
gives  a  touch  of  elegance  to  the 
whole  edifice  ;  while  the  roof,  made 
of  leaves  laid  close  together,  evinces 
even  more  careful  work.  The 
Fijian  buildings  also  to  some  ex- 
tent   fall    under    this    rectangular 


Roof  ornaments  and  shoring-props  from  New  Caledonia. 
(Vienna  Museum.) 


style.  Besides  those  which  are  characterised  by  the  long  roof-tree  we  find  a 
second  class,  of  which  the  ground-plan  is  a  circle  or  an  oval,  and  its  external 
mark  the  conical  or  even  bee-hive  roof.  This  is  indigenous  especially  to  New 
Guinea,  to  some  of  the  groups  in  the  Torres  Straits,  to  New  Caledonia  and  the 
Admiralty  Islands  ;  also  to  Fiji  and  the  Solomons.  The  whole  thing  often  looks 
just  like  a  hay-rick.  The  temples  differ  from  the  huts  only  in  size  and  internal 
fittings.  An  advance  towards  embellishment  is  seen  in  the  fashion  of  planting  a 
fiery-red  dracaena  near  the  huts.  . 

The  Polynesian  house  shows  no  tendency  to  soar  on  high,  but  grows  only  in 
length,  even  when  it  is  already  some  hundreds  of  feet  long.     Thus,  however  elegant 


262 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


the  general  appearance  may  be,  nothing  of  architectural  importance  is  arrived  at ; 
and  the  building,  even  though  erected  with  care  and  amid  special  rites,  is  light  and 
not  durable.  Ruins  of  habitations  are  seen  only  where  a  stone  foundation  has 
been  laid.  The  Hawaiians  were  the  last  to  give  up  their  grass-huts — long  after 
they  had  adopted  Christianity  together  with  European  clothes  and  utensils  ;  but 
even  seventy  years  ago  their  chiefs  were  having  stone  houses  built.  The  per- 
sistence of  the  Polynesian  house  in  less  elevated  forms  explains  the  value  attached 
to  the  roof  When  a  Samoan  village  in  time  of  war  is  fearing  an  attack,  the 
people  take  off  their  precious  roofs  and  carry  them  to  a  place  of  safety.  The 
roof  of  a  New  Caledonian  house  is  richly  adorned  with  bunches  of  leaves  and 
shells.  Under  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the  Maoris  the  Polynesian  style  under- 
went the  greatest  variation  among  them.  The  ground-plan  was  the  same,  but  the 
house  had  firm  wooden  walls,  with  only  a  small  door  and  narrow  window  in  the 

front,  which  faced  east- 
wards. The  roof-tree  was 
carried  over  a  porch,  and 
the  roof  thatched  with 
rushes  or  coarse  grass. 
This  simple  type  can  be 
materially  enriched  by 
carvings.  These  adorn  in 
the  first ,  place  .  the  main 
pillar,  which  is  in  human 
shape  ;  also  the  supporters 
of  the  porch,  the  gable,  and 
often  each  individual  piece 
In  the  less   genial  districts  they  have  winter.,  houses 


Mats  from  Tongatabu.     (Cook  Collection,  Vienna. 


of  wood  inside  and  out 
half  underground.  In  winter  a  fire  is  lighted  inside,  and  when  the  coals  have 
ceased  to  glow  every  opening  is  closed  air-tight,  till  with  an  external-  tempera- 
ture of  15°  or  so  the  interior  is  up  to  80°  or  90°.  This  no  doubt  is  one  of  the 
causes  of  their  disorders,  for  besides  the  exhalations  of  humanity  there  are  also 
tobacco -smoke  and  the  odours  of  drying  fish,  the  New  Zealanders'  "national 
perfume."  On  the  other  hand,  the  neighbourhood  of  the  huts  is  kept  clean,  and 
in  the  palmy  days  of  the  Maoris  a  village  would  always  give  the  impression  of 
tidiness  and  comfort. 

Here  and  there  in  Polynesia  stone  buildings  have  been  found  which  have 
been  taken  to  be  habitations.  The  caves  in  heaps  of  stones  which  are  among 
the  curiosities  of  Easter  Island  were  perhaps  places  of  refuge  in  case  of  war. 
They  exist  also  on  other  islands.  In  Isabel,  villages  defended  by  palisades  for 
the  reception  of  fugitives  have  been  laid  out  in  the  heights  of  mountains  difficult 
of  access.  They  are  called  Teitaihi,  and  from  the  sea  look  like  little  forts.  In 
Hawaii  the  boundaries  enclosing  the  villages  were  marked  by  walls  a  yard  high. 

Although  as  regards  the  form  of  the  house  it  is  immaterial  in  itself  whether  it 
stands  on  the  ground  or  on  piles,  on  dry  land  or  in  the  water,  yet  pile-building  in 
Melanesian  dwellings  has  been  carried  to  an  extent  found  nowhere  else  ;  and  even 
where  it  is  not,  as  it  often  is,  seen  in  its  extreme  development,  it  forms  a  charac- 
teristic feature  of  life  and  scenery.  Whether  on  dry  ground  or  in  the  water,  the 
house  is  built  on  piles.     Speaking  of  the  village  of  Sowek  on   Geelvink   Bay  (of 


LABOUR,   DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


263 


which  we  give  a  coloured  illustration),  where  some  thirty  houses  stand  on  piles,  at- 
tached by  tree  stems  to  each  other,  but  not  to  the  shore,  Raffray  says  :  "  We  have  in 
fact  a  perfect  pile-village,  just  like  those  which  science  has  reconstructed  from  the 
prehistoric  period."  The  yet  neater  huts  in  Humboldt  Bay  similarly  rest  on  piles 
a  yard  out  of  the  water,  but  are  connected  by  bridges.  The  roof  rises  to  a  height 
of  nearly  40  feet,  and  forms  a  steep  six  or  eight-sided  pyramid.  The  houses  more 
in  the  interior  of  New  Guinea  are  likewise  built  on  a  similar  plan  ;  and  although  on 
dry  land,  stand  upon  lofty  piles  which,  with  their  sloping  stays,  present  a  highly 
original  type  of  architecture  as  shown  in  the  cut.     They  hang  like  eagles'   nests, 


House  in  the  Arfak  village  of  Memiwa,  New  Guinea.      (After  Raffray. ) 

some  50  feet  in  the  air,  on  their  thin  swaying  trestle-work,  looking  as  if  every 
puff  of  wind  must  sweep  them  away.  These  airy  dwellings  are  entered  by  means 
of  slanting  tree-stems  with  steps  nicked  in  them. 

Constant  hostilities  have  given  rise  to  a  special  architecture  in  New  Guinea 
and  the  Solomon  Islands.  Huts,  known  as  bako,  adapted  to  hold  some  twelve 
people,  are  attached  to  the  branches  of  huge  trees  at  a  height  of  80  to  100  feet. 
The  stem  below  is  stripped  of  all  unnecessary  branches,  and  perfectly  smooth. 
Ladders  made  from  liana  or  bamboo,  which  can  be  drawn  up,  serve  to  climb  into 
these  tree-huts,  in  which  stones  and  spears  are  stored.  At  the  foot  of  each  tree  a 
second  hut  is  built,  to  live  in  during  the  day. 

The  size  of  the  buildings  is  the  expression  of  social  conditions.  Where  one 
family  inhabits  the  house,  as  in  Polynesia,  they  are  small,  becoming  larger  in 


:64 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


proportion  as  the  family  groups  adhere  to  the  old  custom  of  a  common  dwelling. 
Large  houses  belonging  to  individuals  are  rare.  In  Fiji,  where  the  houses  are  very 
fine,  the  old  customs  had  been  much  weakened  by  the  prosperity  of  the  aristocracy 
of  chiefs  even  before  the  English  annexation.  As  regards  size,  and  in  other  respects, 
the  architecture  of  the  Solomon  Islands  comes  nearest  to  that  of  Fiji,  the  New 
Hebrides  standing  a  stage  lower.     The  chiefs'  houses,  the  capacious  assembly  and 

guest  -  houses,  the  boat- 
houses,  are  carefully  built 
and  adorned  with  carved 
work,  painting,  and  skulls  ; 
while  large  pots,  orna- 
mental bowls,  plaited  work, 
and  here  and  there  fire- 
arms form  the  most  highly- 
valued  decorations.  In 
New  Guinea  the  village 
halls,  called  marea,  are 
specially  notable.  Even 
in  the  pile-villages  they  are 
found  in  a  reduced  form. 
In  New  Hanover  and  New 
Ireland  they  are  buildings 
of  moderate  size,  12  feet 
by  25  or  30  feet ;  so,  too, 
in  New  Britain,  where  the 
roof  of  palm -leaves,  pro- 
jecting a  little  beyond  the  outer  walls,  has  on  either  side  a  kind  of  turret,  on  the 
top  of  which  is  a  bundle  of  reeds.  It  is  in  Micronesia  that  the  assembly  or 
club-houses  are  most  conspicuous.  In  Yap,  Pelew,  and  Mancape  in  the  Gilberts, 
two  kinds  of  houses  are 
universally  distinguished 
—  the  family  houses, 
blais,  and  the  great 
houses  or  bats.  The 
building  of  the  great 
houses  is  a  political 
matter,  and  as  such 
entrusted  to  consecrated 
artificers.  They  are 
rectangular  buildings, 
standing  alone :  in  the  Carolines  on  a  stone  foundation  ;  in  Pelew  on  a  platform 
of  beams,  upon  which  the  polished  floor  immediately  rests.  Here  the  principle 
of  pile-building  is  employed  on  dry  land.  In  contrast  to  the  care  with  which 
foundation,  floor,  and  walls  are  treated,  the  high  steep  roof  seems  neglected, 
no  doubt  because  violent  storms  frequently  take  it  off  The  common  hall  has 
generally  six  similar  openings  the  entire  height  of  the  wall,  from  a  yard  to  a  yard 
and  a  half  in  width.  These,  like  the  doors  and  windows,  can  be  closed  with 
light   screens    of   reed    or   bamboo.     Verandahs   contribute    to    the   comfortable 


Stool  from  Dorey  in  New  Guinea — one-seventh  real  size. 
(Christy  Collection. ) 


New  Caledonian  head-stools.      (Vienna  Museum. ) 


LABOUR,  DWELLINGS,  AND  FOOD  IN  OCEANIA 


265 


character  of  the  houses.  In  the  case  of  the  club-houses  of  New  Guinea  they  are 
often  covered  with  hangings  of  leaf  fibre.  The  low  door  has  often  a  porch  of 
its  own. 

In  the  interior  of  the  Polynesian  huts  apartments  are  arranged  by  means  of 
woven  work  and  matting  stretched  from  wall  to  wall ;  in  the  smaller  houses  at 
least  a  sleeping  place  is  divided  off.  The  carving  on  timbers  and  pillars,  the 
reed  panelling  or  mat 
tapestry  on  the  walls, 
the  cords  of  various 
colours  with  which  ' 
the  rafters  are  bound, 
hanging  down  from 
the  roof,  lend  a  cheer- 
ful and  pleasant  char- 
acter to  the  interior  of 

the  better  houses.  The  floor  is  carpeted  with  mats  ;  near  the  central  pillar  is  a 
hollow  where  the  domestic  fire  burns.  This  central  pillar  is  the  place  of  honour 
where  the  master  of  the  house  and  his  head  wives  sleep,  and  where  weapons 


Carved  and  painted  rafters  from  common  ^alls  [bais]  in  Ruk. 
(Godeffroy  Collection,  Leipzig. ) 


I    Goiu-d  bottle  from  the  D'Entrecasteaux  Islands— one-third  real  size      ; 
Yap— one-fourth  real  size.     (Finsch  Collection,  Berlm. 


Head-stool  from 


and  utensils  hang  in  tasteful  arrangement.  Less  comfortable  is  the  fitting  up  of 
Melanesian  houses,  in  particular  of  the  pile- buildings,  the  floor  of  which  is 
formed  by  cross  timbers  hardly  as  thick  as  the  arm  and  often  half  a  yard  apart, 
rendering  a  certain  amount  of  dexterity  necessary  to  step  over  the  gaps  In 
the  actual  living  rooms  on  either  side  of  the  corridor,  bamboo  rods  more  closely 
laid   form   the   floor.     There   are  no  windows,  since   it   is   thought   that   ghosts 


266  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

do  not  come  in  through  the  doors  but  through  openings  in  the  roof.  Boards 
covered  with  a  mat  form  the  bed,  the  hearth  is  of  basket-work  with  a  thick  layer 
of  earth  on  it ;  long  thick  pieces  of  bamboo  with  the  joints  perforated  for  holding 
water,  sacks  of  matting,  javelins,  bows,  arrows,  spears,  have  their  appointed  places. 
In  Tahiti  there  used  to  be  regular  stands  for  utensils,  also  shelves,  and  a  long 
boat-shaped  framework  on  which  the  dishes  were  placed  at  meals.  In  Samoan 
huts  at  the  present  day  a  chest  stands  on  the  floor  in  which  clothes  and  small 
objects  are  kept.  Chiefs  even  had  a  chest  of  drawers,  and  similar  articles  of 
furniture  have  been  introduced  elsewhere  in  the  course  of  Europeanising.  Among 
the  house  furniture  of  the  Tongans,  the  headstool  of  hard  lancewood  is  never 
absent ;  the  Samoans  use  as  a  support  for  their  heads  a  piece  of  bamboo  half  a 
yard  long,  as  thick  as  the  arm,  and  with  short  legs.  In  Yap,  the  Marshall  and 
Solomon  Islands,  and  no  doubt  elsewhere,  a  billet  serves.  In  Fiji,  as  in  Tonga, 
Samoa,  and  Tahiti,  this  has  become  a  regular  stool.  In  Yap  these  stools  have 
faces  carved  at  either  end.  Seats  are  of  European  introduction,  and  have  estab- 
lished themselves  only  in  the  huts  of  the  chiefs.  Even  in  the  Christian  churches 
men  and  women  sit  upon  large  mats  with  their  legs  doubled  under  them.  The 
artistic  tendency  shows  itself  also  in  house  architecture  by  the  picturesque  forms 
given  to  the  gables,  often  as  much  as  40  feet  high,  of  the  roofs,  which  reach  far 
down,  often  saddle-shaped  and  woven  with  carefully-worked  thatch.  The  reed 
walls,  often  entirely  concealed  on  the  outside  by  the  roof,  display  on  the  inside 
pretty  patterns.  Where  there  are  three  layers  of  reeds  the  inner  one  lies 
horizontally,  and  the  crossings  of  the  others  are  utilised  to  produce  these  patterns. 
A  master  of  difficult  patterns  is  a  man  in  great  demand.  Much  trouble  is 
expended  in  Micronesia  in  the  adornment  of  the  club-houses  :  the  exterior  is 
painted  and  inlaid  with  shells  ;  in  the  interior  red  ochre  is  used  on  the  walls,  and 
the  floor  is  varnished  with  vegetable  lacquer.  The  principal  decoration  consists  in 
winding  the  reeds  with  string  ;  also  in  the  carving  of  the  timbers  and  walls  with 
hieroglyphics  of  mythical  signification. 

The  relation  between  houses  and  ships  exercises  a  remarkable  influence  upon 
the  nature  of  the  carved  and  painted  ornaments,  perhaps  upon  the  whole  style. 
The  walls  of  the  house  are  made  by  preference  from  the  planks  of  old  vessels,  and 
bowed  outwards.  The  roof  is  shaped  like  a  ship,  and  the  whole  house  is  like  a 
boat  turned  over  and  placed  on  props.  Images  of  ancestors  on  the  gable  or  at 
the  side  of  a  house  call  to  mind  how  the  whole  house  «was  consecrated  from  the 
foundation  upwards.  Small  monuments  in  the  neighbourhood  take  the  form  of 
miniature  houses.  If  one  considers  that  a  large  house  is  fastened  together  only  by 
cords  ;  that  the  boards,  some  6  inches  wide,  and  the  massive  beams  were  hewn  with 
shell  axes  and  finely  smoothed  ;  that  the  planks  of  the  floor  are  even  polished ; 
that  the  holes  were  made  with  sharks'  teeth  gimlets,  we  may  get  an  idea  of  the 
amount  of  labour  expended  upon  such  a  building.  These  works  are  eloquent 
witnesses  of  the  height  which  craftsmanship,  art,  and  comfort  have  attained  where 
the  age  of  stone  still  prevails. 

A  small  number  of  houses — some  twenty  or  thirty — form  a  village  at  a 
favourable  spot  on  the  shore,  by  preference  at  the  mouth  of  a  river,  where  fresh 
and  salt  water  are  at  hand.  Villages  are  rare  further  in  the  interior,  and  then 
only  on  heights  ;  on  the  shore  they  are  apt  to  be  hidden  behind  a  belt  of  forest. 
The  mode  of  life  points,  indeed,  to  the  sea  ;    in  former  times  it  may  have  been 


THE  FAMILY  AND   THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA  267 


otherwise.  Everywhere  in  the  hills  we  find  traces  of  deserted  villages,  but  the 
present  inhabitants  know  nothing  about  them.  Perhaps  the  assemblages  were 
once  larger;  now  a  village  of  more  than  500  inhabitants  is  a  rare  exception. 
Life  in  these  villages  is  very  varied,  often  idyllic  ;  each  dwelling  stands  separate, 
surrounded  by  gardens  and  fields,  or  under  the  shade  of  lofty  trees.  Paved  roads 
are  frequent :  in  Yap  they  are  a  yard  or  two  wide  and  paved  with  slabs  of  stone, 
broadening  out  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  club-houses  into  a  paved  place  of 
assembly.  Here,  and  by  every  old  house,  flat  stones  are  sunk  into  the  ground  as 
seats.  It  is  in  Fiji  especially  that  we  hear  of  well-laid  roads  and  other  public 
works.  There  a  canal  called  Kelimoosu  has  been  cut  through  the  delta  from  Bau 
to  the  river  Wainiki  in  order  to  shorten  the  passage  for  strategic  purposes.  New 
Caledonia  shows  remains  of  ancient  aqueducts,  and  in  Espiritu  Santo  the  village 
streets  are  to  this  day  laid  with  flints  and  provided  with  conduits.  A  light  breath 
of  historic  life  sweeps  with  a  gentle  melancholy  round  these  villages,  and  round 
the  solitude  of  the  superfluous  fortific'ations  on  the  hills  and  the  stone  pyramids 
which  stand  man-high  in  the  stone  circles  of  the  Nangas. 


§  8.  THE  FAMILY  AND  THE  STATE   IN  OCEANIA 

The  family — Birth — Dedication — Education — Courtship  and  weddings — Position  of  women — Marriage — 
Mother-right — Tribal  organisation — The  state — Classes  and  ranks — Aristocratic  type  of  public  life — The 
prince  and  the  nobles — Limitations  of  sovereign  power — Court  ceremonial — Warlike  character — Casus  belli 
— Military  organisation — Modes  of  fighting — Sieges — Sea-fights — Treaties — The  Malo — Respect  for  law — 
Laws  of  taboo — Punishment  of  those  who  violate  taboo — Removal  of  taboo. 

Among  the  Polynesian  races,  the  birth  of  a  child  is  accompanied  by  an  invocation 
of  the  gods  on  the  part  of  the  husband  or  father  ;  while  the  woman's  mother,  or 
one  of  her  near  relations,  performs  the  duties  of  midwife.  First,  the  family  deity 
is  called  to  aid  ;  but  if  labour  is  protracted,  the  husband's  or  mother's  own 
private  god.  Dedicatory  rites  have  already  taken  place  during  pregnancy.  At 
the  moment  of  parturition  the  names  of  all  the  gods  are  recited  in  succession,  and 
the  one  whose  name  is  uttered  as  the  child  comes  into  the  world  is  regarded  as 
his  tutelary  deity.  Similarly  the  Tohungas  of  New  Zealand,  after  aspersion, 
watch  the  movements  of  the  child,  and  select  as  its  secret  name  that  word  of  their 
invocation  which  coincides  with  them.  After  the  birth,  the  chief  ceremony  is 
the  cutting  of  the  cord.  This  is  performed  in  Samoa,  in  the  case  of  boys,  upon 
a  club,  to  make  them  brave  ;  while  for  girls,  one  of  the  boards  is  used  upon  which 
the  tapa  is  beaten,  that  she  may  be  an  industrious  housewife.  In  Fiji  the  cord 
is  solemnly  buried.  As  in  New  Zealand,  where  children  are  purified  and  named 
eight  days  after  birth,  with  invocation  of  the  tutelary  god,  and  sprinkling  with 
water,  the  Morioris  of  Chatham  Island  give  the  name  amid  hymns  from  the  priests, 
water  being  poured  on  at  the  same  time  ;  and  they  further  plant  a  maheu-tree,  in 
order  that  the  child  may  grow  like  it  and  flourish.  Among  the  Melanesians, 
simpler  customs  prevail.  A  hut  is  built  for  the  lying-in  woman,  and  some  female 
relation  suckles  the  infant.  Continence  and  purification  are  enjoined  upon  the 
husband  also.  In  Fiji  and  the  New  Hebrides  neither  of  the  couple  eats  flesh-meat 
or  fish  after  the  birth,  for  fear  of  making  the  baby  ill ;    nor  must  the  father,  for 


268 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


a  month  after  the  birth  of  his  first  child,  do  any  hard  work.  The  couvade  occurs 
distinctly  in  San  Christoval,  where  "  father-right "  is  the  custom.  Infanticide  is 
widespread,  and  abortion  is  extensively  practised,  often  merely  on  account  of  pique, 


Chief's  wife  of  Papua,  Samoa.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album.) 

but  often  also  from  vanity — the  woman  not  caring  to  have  children  until  the  third 
year  of  her  marriage.  In  some  parts  of  the  Solomons  and  the  New  Hebrides 
all  children  even  are  killed  at  birth,  and  substitutes  purchased.  If  the  child  is  a  girl, 
it  has  generally  more  prospect  of  being  kept  alive  where  inheritance  goes  in  the 
female  line,  and  where  it  will  carry  on  the  family  succession.     The  birth  of  twins 


THE  FAMILY  AND   THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA 


269 


is  not  regarded  as  actually  injurious,  though  there  is  a  disposition  to  look  upon 
them  as  uncanny.  If  the  children  are  once  allowed  to  live,  everything  is  done  for 
them  with  due  care.  Not  only  the  parents  but  the  relations  make  them  presents. 
Little  children  who  are  living  after  their  parents'  death  are  adopted  by  others  ; 
if  they  are  older,  natural  ties,  as  well  as  the  laws  of  inheritance,  are  honestly 
observed  in  the  traditional  way. 

The   most    important  epochs  in   life   have  their   own  religious  consecration. 


Tongan  ladies.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album. ) 

God  is  closer  to  man  than  is  always  the  case  with  us  Christians.  In  Saa,  and  on 
the  Leper's  Island,  toy  bows  are  offered,  a  week  or  ten  days  after  birth,  on  behalf 
of  the  boy,  that  he  may  be  strong  ;  mat-fibres  for  the  girl,  that  she  may  be 
industrious.  The  participation  in  this  of  relations  on  the  father's  side  is  a 
significant  infraction  of  mother-right,  which  in  other  respects  is  jealously  guarded. 
In  Hawaii,  the  child  at  weaning  is  brought  from  the  mother-house,  Noa,  to  the 
father-house,  Mua,  and  thereby  falls  under  the  taboo  to  be  presently  mentioned. 


2  70  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

Thereupon  the  mother  sacrifices  a  pig  to  her  family  god,  while  the  father  offers 
ava  and  implores  health  for  the  new  scion.  At  the  entrance  upon  manhood  their 
consecration  is  repeated  in  more  severe  forms,  and  attended  by  customs  of  a 
hardening  nature.  A  general  fast  is  held  in  the  family.  The  grandfather, 
between  whose  soul  and  that  of  the  next  generation  but  one  a  closer  affinity  is 
deemed  to  exist,  rouses  the  iirst-born  grandson  from  his  sleep,  and  initiates  him,  in 
a  hut  set  apart  for  the  purpose,  into  the  mysteries  handed  down  from  past  times ; 
or  the  Tohungas  of  the  tribe  teach  the  rudiments  of  the  traditions  to  such  as  show 
themselves  of  capacity,  especially  to  the  sons  of  Ariki  or  chiefs,  dwelling  meantime 
in  the  forest,  in  a  house  of  leaves.  The  fasts  are  terminated  by  eating  the  pith  of 
the  toia-toia,  in  order  "  to  cork  up  the  secrets  "  ;  followed  by  a  second  aspersion. 
After  this  the  youth  is  fit  for  marriage.  Yet  another  consecration  takes  place 
later,  when  the  youth,  now  ripe  for  his  first  campaign,  stands  naked  by  the  river- 
side, and  is  sprinkled  with  water  by  the  priests,  calling  upon  Tu.  Women  and 
boys  are  not  admitted. 

In  education  the  influence  of  the  family  is  less  than  that  of  the  village 
community  or  the  tribe,  as  we  may  see  if  we  consider  the  frightful  extension  of 
infanticide  in  pre-Christian  times,  at  the  bidding  of  these  authorities.  It  was 
favoured  by  the  ease  with  which  marriages  could  be  dissolved,  and  the  exagger- 
ated view  taken  of  the  devolution  of  the  father's  position  upon  the  son.  Immedi- 
ately after  birth  the  first-born  boy  is  invested  with  his  father's  name  and  dignity 
and  henceforth  takes  precedence  of  him.  While  the  boy  is  in  his  minority,  this 
produces  no  practical  results,  the  father  exercising  all  authority  in  his  son's  name. 
But  the  child  must  sometimes  be  felt  to  be  a  burden  ;  for  which  reason  those 
freest  of  free  people,  \!as.Ariis  or  Ehris  of  Tahiti,  recognise  no  children.  Connec- 
tions cutting  into  and  cutting  up  families  contribute  still  more  to  cause  estrange- 
ment between  parents  and  children — adoption  especially.  In  the  Gilbert  Islands 
the  parents  select  the  adoptive  father  or  mother,  who,  when  these  are  people  of 
means,  intrude  themselves  even  before  the  child  is  born.  It  is  the  adoptive 
father  who  arranges  the  marriage  of  his  fictitious  offspring,  and  in  whose  house 
the  young  couple  live.  In  this  way  complete  transpositions  take  place  within 
the  family.  It  must,  however,  be  said  that  in  communities  of  lax  morality 
adoption  makes  the  descent  of  children  more  secure  than  the  recognition  of  the 
true  children,  born  under  corrupt  conjugal  relations,  can  do.  The  inequality  of 
the  sexes  has  a  profound  effect  upon  family  life  and  the  increase  of  the  race. 
The  reasons  that  have  been  assigned  for  the  smaller  number  of  women  are  the 
murder  of  female  infants,  and  the  greater  mortality  of  the  adult  women  by  reason 
of  too  early  child-bearing,  overwork,  and  privation,  the  violence  of  the  men,  and 
licentiousness.  The  proportion  is  often  quite  abnormal :  in  Hawaii  it  reaches 
one  woman  to  four  or  five  men. 

In  Melanesia  circumcision  usually  takes  place  on  the  appearance  of  the 
beard.  On  attaining  puberty,  or  sooner,  the  youth  leaves  the  parental  hut  and 
avoids  his  mother  and  sisters,  sleeping  in  the  common  hall,  which,  except  at 
marriage  festivities,  no  woman  may  enter.  The  ceremonies  at  the  initiation 
of  the  nubile  girls  are  simple,  in  Samoa  no  more  than  a  feast  with  presents.  The 
whole  course  of  life  is  different  where  girls  are  betrothed  from  their  birth,  and 
are  brought  up  from  childhood  in  the  house  of  their  intended.  In  Isabel  it  is 
even  the  custom  for  a  girl  to  live  in  the  bridegroom's  family  till  she  is  full-grown. 


THE  FAMILY  AND    THE  STATE  IN   OCEANIA 


271 


In  Fiji,  when  that  time  has  arrived,  the  bridegroom  comes  to  the  house  of  the 
parents,  offers  some  whales'  teeth  as  a  present,  and  takes  the  long-engaged  bride 
to  be  his  wife.      Here,  as  in  the  Banks  Islands,  any  anticipation  of  his  marital 
rights   is  jealously  guarded   against.      If  the   girl   goes   wrong    she    is    severely 
punished,  even  put  to  death ;   and  her  seducer,  if  he  is  caught,  shares  the  same 
fate.     A  custom  hard  to  explain  is  found  in  the  Solomon  Islands,  in  New  Britain, 
and  New  Ireland — that  girls  on  reaching  puberty  are  locked  up  for  some  months 
in  little  huts  of  their  own,  entrance 
being  allowed  only  to  old  women. 
The   ceremonies   of   courtship 
are  conducted  on  the  familiar  lines. 
The  courting  is  done  on  the  young 
man's  behalf  by  relations  or  friends, 
who  bring  the  symbolic   presents 
to  the  house  of  the  girl.     These 
are  in  Samoa  food,  in  New  Britain 
heavy  strings  of  money,  carried  on 
spears.     The  acceptance  of  these 
signifies  a  favourable  disposition ; 
but  as  this  form   of  courtship  is 
addressed    not  to  the  family   but 
to    the    tribe,    the    final    decision 
rests   with    the   tribal   chief.      At 
the  wedding  an  exchange  of  gifts 
takes     place,    the     settlement    of 
which    often   gives    rise    to    some 
hard  bargaining.     The  bridegroom 
gives  a   boat,  weapons,  pigs  ;   the 
bride    mats    and    bark-cloth.      In 
Samoa  both  tribes  used  to  assemble 
for  the  wedding  festivities  in  the 
public  place  of  the  village.     The 
bride,  followed  by  her  friends  and 
playmates,    well     oiled,    carrying 
flowers  and  dressed  in  their  best  ,  ,u    v,  •A^^.r.r.rr. 

mats,  walked  along  a  mat-strewn  path  to  the  middle,  where  sat  A^  b„d^g-°- 
awaiting  her.  She  took  her  place  facing  him,  on  a  snow-white  mat  while  the  young 
women  brought  the  wedding  presents,  singing  as  they  went.  In  the  days  when  the 
lefs  still  took  a  pride  in  the  virtue  of  their  daughters,  inquiry  mto  this  followed ; 
and  great  was  the  applause  which  greeted  chief  and  tribe  ^f  "o  ^^am  cou  d  be  shown 
on  her  character.  The  bridegroom's  friends  then  escorted  the  bride  to  her  future 
home  where  she  passed  some  days  in  seclusion.  This  ^^^\f^-^-^'y  J'^^l'^^^Z 
have  ^een  only  provisional,  and  the  next  five  or  six  months  a  period  of  P-ba^K," 
since  at  the  end  of  that  period  a  second  festive  gathering  was  held,  and  the jnarnage 
s  aed  by  a  renewed  exchange  of  presents.  In  Melanesia  too  this  exchgeb^ 
thinly  concealed  thepurchase  of  wives.  The  price  -1-"-^.'^^  f  f  ^^f^^^  ^^  ^^^^^^ 
by  the  son ;  and  in  the  Solomons  a  widow  is  at  the  absolute  disposal  of  her  deceased 
husband's  relatives,  in  the  event  of  her  marriage-pnce  not  bemg  refunded.     The 


Old  Tongan  woman.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album. ) 


272 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


necessity  of  refunding  this  is  often  the  only  ground  of  abstention  from  hasty 
divorces.  Among  the  better-to-do  classes  of  the  more  advanced  stocks,  like  the 
Fiiians,  cases  occur,  though  exceptionally,  of  marriage  of  inclination  The  acquisi- 
tion of  wives  by  capture  still  occurs,  and  the  capture  can  be  made  good  by  the 
payment  of  an  indemnity  to  the  relations,  in  case  the  woman  is  content  with  her 
husband  Fights  of  a  "pretence"  kind,  however,  take  place  between  the  brides 
and  the  bridegroom's  friends,  even  where  there  is  no  trace  of  compulsion  ;  and 

a  slight  resistance  on  the  bride  s 
part  is  regarded  as  good  manners. 
In  various  parts  of  West 
Melanesia  marriage  is  celebrated 
with  ceremonies  of  a  religious 
character.  Thus  at  Dorey,  on 
Geelvink  Bay,  the  couple  join 
hands  sitting  before  an  ancestral 
image,  and  eat  sago  together 
under  the  exhortations  and  con- 
gratulations of  their  friends  ;  she 
offers  him  tobacco,  he  presents 
her  with  betel.  During  the  first 
night  the  newly -married  pair 
must  sit  up  together  while  the 
relations  partake  of  a  copious 
and  solemn  meal ;  after  which 
the  young  husband  takes  his 
wife  home.  In  New  Britain  the 
couple  are  sprinkled  with  coco- 
nut milk,  the  nut  being  broken 
above  their  heads.  The  wedding 
revel  with  music  and  dancing  is 
seldom  forgotten. 

A  man  frequently  takes  two 
wives,  or  more,  if  his  establish- 
ment allows.  Among  poor  tribes 
like  the  Motus,  on  the  other 
hand,  monogamy  is  universal ; 
but  divorce  is  so  easy  that  a 
kind  of  "  successive  polygamy  " 
arises.  When  the  wife  is  dgne 
with  she  is  laid  aside  or  bartered  away.  In  the  Gilberts  a  man  can  deiriand  the 
sisters  of  his  wife  in  marriage,  and  is  expected  to  marry  his  brother's  widows.  The 
overplus  of  women  among  the  Naiabeis  of  New  Guinea  decides  the  point,  no  less 
than  does  in  other  cases  the  more  usual  overplus  of  men.  Peculiar  family  or- 
ganisations not  uncommonly  show  traces  of  polyandry.  In  the  New  Hebrides,  for 
example,  there  is  a  kind  of  convention  in  cases  of  widowhood,  that  two  widowers 
shall  live  with  one  widow  ;  the  children  belonging  to  both.  Dearth  of  women  has 
lately  given  rise  to  something  similar  in  the  villages  of  labourers  in  Fiji,  reminding 
us  of  the  limitations  of  permitted  marriages  caused  by  the  veve  or  veita  system  to 


Princess  Ruth  of  Hawaii.     (From  a  photograph  belonging  to 
Professor  Buchner,  Munich.  )• 


THE  FAMILY  AND    THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA 


273 


be  mentioned  presently.  In  New  Ireland  and  New  Britain  widows  are  claimed  as 
common  property  by  all  the  men.  But  the  re-marriage  of  the  widower  is  opposed 
by  all  the  female  relations  of  the  deceased  wife :  at  first  sportively,  by  using  every 
possible  form  of  annoyance  to  make  the  man  keep  at  a  distance,  and  then  in 
earnest,  if  he  does  marry  again,  by  destroying  his  house,  goods,  and  crops. 

Generally  speaking,  in  the  simpler  conditions  of  Melanesia,  morality  stands 
in  many  respects  higher  than  in  Micronesia.  Finsch  says  of  New  Britain  :  "  The 
exemplary  modesty  and  respectable  demeanour  of  women  and  girls  strikes  the 
traveller  coming  from 
Micronesia  in  a  specially 
pleasing  way  ;  and  seems 
hardly  compatible  with 
the  universal  nudity."  In 
some  islands,  as  Florida, 
the  chief  maintains  public 
women,  whose  earnings 
go  to  him  ;  but  elsewhere 
nothing  of  the  kind  is 
known.  Adultery  is  in 
many  islands  punished 
with  death,  or  (in  more 
recent  times)  with  a  fine. 
Jealousy  is  a  great  cause 
of  contention,  both  public 
and  private.  But  at  cer- 
tain seasons  an  ancient 
custom  relaxes  every  tie. 
At  the  Nanga  festival  in 
Fiji  the  women  are  the 
willing  prizes  of  whoever 
can  catch  them  in  a  race ; 
and  at  the  same  time  all 
taboos  of  articles  of  food 
are  taken  off. 

So  far  as  it  turns  upon 
the  distribution  of  labour, 
the  position  of  the  women, 

especially  in  the  Polynesian  region,  is  higher  than  among  many  other  races. 
Where  labour  itself  is  more  highly  valued  its  distribution  between  the  sexes  is 
fairer.  In  Tonga  almost  all  work,  even  that  of  cooking,  fell  to  the  men  ;  the 
women  only  preparing  tapa  by  way  of  entertainment  among  a  circle  of  neigh- 
bours, accompanied  by  the  men  beating  time.  In  Hawaii  it  was  the  same 
Both  work  together  in  the  fields,  but  fishing  is  the  men's  aff^air ;  though 
women  take  part  in  diving  for  shells.  Among  the  more  needy  tribes  more  is  laid 
upon  the  woman,  and  with  nomads  she  is  the  beast  of  burden.  In  New 
Zealand  the  women  held  formerly  a  higher  position.  They  were  not  excluded 
from  the  discussion  of  public  affairs,  not  even  from  councils  of  war  ;    they  even 

went  with  the  men  to  battle. 

T 


Women  of  Ponap6  in  the  Carolines.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album. ) 


Husband  and  wife  ate  together,  and  the  mother 


274  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

got  as  much  obedience  from  her  children  as  the  father.  Only  in  certain  tribes 
destitution  produced  exceptions.  Nothing  in  all  this  is  altered  where  "  mother- 
right  "  is  valid  ;  for  though  the  children  follow  the  mother,  the  father  is  still  the 
head  of  the  family,  and  his  wedded  wife  does  not  belong  to  "  his  side  of  the  house," 
but  remains  "  at  the  door."  As  in  affairs  of  daily  life,  so  even  in  higher  matters 
two  views  of  the  woman's  position  are  in  dispute  ;  and  here  too  we  find  that  the 
higher  view  is  taken  in  some  Polynesian  groups.  But  even  in  the  Melanesian 
Islands  we  meet  with  both  not  far  apart.  In  the  northern  New  Hebrides  women 
seem  freer  than  in  the  southern,  and  in  some  parts  of  New  Guinea  her  position 
in  the  family  is  described  as  one  of  high  esteem.  But  in  Polynesia  the  notion 
that  contact  with  her  is  defiling,  excludes  her  from  closer  association  with  men 
at  meals,  at  public  worship,  and  at  festivals.  In  Tahiti  men  and  women  have 
their  separate  priests  ;  in  other  islands  the  women  have  none,  and  even  a  life  in  the 
next  world  is  not  allowed  to  them  on  the  part  of  the  men.  In  Melanesia  the 
women  may  not  enter  the  common  houses  of  the  men,  nor  the  boat-houses,  which 
are  of  the  nature  of  temples.  Yet  again  the  Maoris  ascribed  prophetic  gifts  to 
the  oldest  woman  of  the  tribe,  while  in  Tonga  there  were  priestesses  who,  after 
drinking  ava,  were  possessed  and  prophesied.  In  Micronesia  their  social  position 
has  unmistakably  risen.  Here  it  is  quite  contrary  to  good  manners  for  a  hus- 
band to  beat  his  wife  or  use  insulting  words  to  her  in  public.  In  Pelew,  if  the 
woman  insulted  belongs  to  the  Ajdit  stock,  the  fine  imposed  is  equal  to  that  for 
homicide,  and  if  it  cannot  be  paid  the  culprit  must  fly  the  country.  The  greatest , 
insult  that  can  be  offered  to  a  married  man  is  any  ill  word  of  his  wife  ;  and  no 
one  must  mention  the  name  of  another  man's  wife  in  public.  A  social  organisa- 
tion exists  here  for  women  corresponding  to  that  of  the  men,  and  running  almost 
parallel  with  it.  Just  as  the  chief  of  the  men  in  Pelew  must  belong  to  the  family 
whose  seat  is  Ajdit,  so  the  eldest  woman  of  this  family  is  the  queen  of  the  women. 
Beside  her  stand  a  number  of  female  chiefs,  with  whom  she  keeps  an  eye  upon  the 
good  behaviour  of  the  women,  holds  her  tribunal,  and  gives  judgment  without  any 
man  being  allowed  to  interfere.  So  too  the  women  are  divided  into  leagues,  called 
Klobbergoll.  If  these  lack  the  important  attribute  of  the  male  unions, — community 
of  labour,  participation  in  the  wars,  common  dwelling  in  the  bais, — they  have  the 
right  to  levy  taxes  at  festivals  and  on  the  death  of  the  military  king.  Among 
their  duties  are  the  management  of  the  decorations  at  festivals,  including  the 
dances,  of  which  the  men  openly  admit  that  only  the  women  understand  the 
meaning.  The  men  are  strictly  warned  •  off  the  women's  bathing-places  ;  exactly 
for  which  reason  these  spots  are  selected  for  lovers'  rendezvous.  In  this  case  the 
man  is  under  the  protection  of  the  lady  and  her  friends.  A  great  auxiliary  to 
these  tendencies,  which  prevail  in  so  many  districts,  towards  giving  a  higher 
position  to  women,  nay,  even  to  the  widespread  "  mother-right,"  is  that  loosening 
of  the  marriage-tie  which  has  progressed  to  the  point  of  decomposing  society. 

No  tie  in  the  whole  life  of  the  Polynesians  appears  to  be  weaker  than  that 
of  marriage.  Small  reasons  are  enough  to  undo  it,  and  its  undoing  is  taken 
very  easily  on  both  sides.  This  goes  so  far  as  to  make  the  wife's  position  one  of 
simple  thraldom,  where  she  is  regarded  as  the  man's  property  and  no  more.  When 
Europeans  in  Polynesia  wish  to  secure  the  favour  of  native  women  they  have  first 
to  make  a  present  to  the  husbands,  who  will  hand  over  their  wives,  compulsorily 
if  need  be.      In  Hawaii  a  kind  of  incipient  polyandry  arises  by  the  addition  to  the 


THE  FAMILY  AND    THE   STATE  IN  OCEANIA  277 

establishment  of  a  "  cicisbeo,"  known  as  Punali'ia.  Thus  in  Tahiti  women  of  easy- 
virtue  could  call  themselves  Tedna,  which  was  also  the  name  of  ladies  of  the  royal 
family.  Very  often  the  main  object  of  matrimony  appears  to  be  not  at  all  the 
procreation  of  children,  but  the  husband's  comfort ;  or,  at  best,  the  guardianship 
of  the  wife,  or  some  question  of  money.  Besides  this,  not  only  the  constraint  of 
exogamy,  but — at  all  events  in  the  higher  classes — political  objects  have  to  be 
considered.  One  thing  detrimental  to  marriage  is  the  view  that  it  is  not  seemly 
to  display  the  wife  to  the  world  as  being  in  confidential  relations  with  her  husband. 
Men  never  allow  themselves  to  be  seen  on  the  highway  with  their  lawful  wives, 
though  with  a  paramour  they  have  no  objection.  If  a  stranger  stays  in  the  house 
the  wife  keeps  out  of  the  way.  Even  the  number  of  children,  which  is  kept  as  low 
as  possible,  is  affected  by  this  corrupting  influence.  It  arises  in  great  part  from  the 
tribal  organisation  with  its  union  of  men,  involving  necessarily  the  exclusion  of 
the  family  ;  and  even  if  the  family  exists  beside  it,  it  becomes  corroded  at  the 
base.  The  more  the  system  of  men's  clubs  develops,  the  weaker  are  family  ties. 
If  a  girl  at  ten  or  twelve  years  old  has  not  found  a  husband,  she  goes  as  an 
armengol,  or  doxy,  to  a  bai,  and  becomes  the  paramour  of  a  man  who  keeps  her. 
Until  she  can  find  some  one  to  marry  her — a  matter  of  simple  agreement — she 
can  go  from  one  bai  to  another.  Often  the  opposed  interests  of  the  wives  and 
the  irregular  partners  lead  to  quarrels  ;  and  for  this  reason  the  paramour  has  a 
hut  of  her  own  built  for  her  in  the  neighbourhood.  Nothing,  however,  shows 
more  clearly  the  way  in  which  the  superior  force  of  social  organisation  breaks 
through  the  barriers  of  Nature  than  the  fact  that  the  married  women  do  not 
object  to  maintain  the  girls  of  the  bat, — another  proof  of  the  subordination  of 
family  to  tribal  interests  which  the  mode  of  courtship  has  already  exemplified. 
External  life,  too,  is  not  family  but  village  or  tribe  life.  The  Polynesians  are 
sociable,  but  it  is  pre-eminently  a  masculine  society  ;  and  domestic  happiness  is 
not  unaffected  by  this.      In  this  matter  the  Negroes  are  much  better. 

Owing  to  the  twofold  organisation  of  exogamic  society  in  hapus  or  veves  a  whole 
list  of  restrictions,  prohibitions,  menaces,  ramifies  through  families,  and  produces  a 
deep  influence  on  the  life  of  these  races.  The  tie  by  which  all  men  and  all  women 
of  two  different  "  sides  "  are  connected,  is  closer  than  the  marriage-tie.  Breaches  of 
it  are  rarely  committed  and  then  severely  punished.  Alliances  between  people 
who  are  ''  of  us  "  are  as  bad  as  incest.  The  stern  law  extends  even  to  newly-born 
children,  and  twins  of  opposite  sexes  fall  victims  to  it.  The  relation  to  the 
parents-in-law  has  peculiar  limitations.  The  man  never  utters  the  name  of  his 
father-in-law,  and  avoids  taking  down  objects  that  may  happen  to  hang  above  his 
head  or  stepping  over  his  legs.  The  mother-in-law  is  avoided  as  much  as  possible, 
and  herself  avoids  looking  at  her  son-in-law  ;  intercourse  is  only  permitted  at  a 
distance  and  with  mutually  averted  faces.  If  they  meet  casually,  they  keep  out  of 
each  other's  way.  Mother  and  son-in-law,  and  often  brother  and  sister,  are  careful 
not  to  tread  in  each  other's  footsteps.  If  one  has  walked  on  the  shore,  the  other 
does  not  go  there  till  the  tide  has  obliterated  the  prints.  Towards  a  brother-in-law 
the  relation  is  as  in  the  case  of  a  father-in-law  ;  neither  his  name  nor  that  of  son- 
or  daughter-in-law  is  ever  uttered,  but  mutual  intercourse  is  not  forbidden.  In 
Leper  Island  and  in  Fiji  brother  and  sister  may  not  talk  to  each  other.  What 
wonder  if  the  domestic  life  of  a  Melanesian  family  is  governed  by  mistrust,  jealousy, 
and  aversion  ?     Other  things,  too,  tend  to  sap  family  life.     Women  during  preg- 


278 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


nancy  remain  separate  from  their  husbands ;  infanticide,  polygamy,  adoption, 
have  a  ruinous  effect.  The  popular  philosophy  of  P""iji  says  that  it  is  usual 
for  a  wife  to  hate  her  husband,  rarer  for  a  husband  to  hate  his  wife,  rarest 
of  all  for  a  woman  to  hate  the  man  by  whom  she  has  had  a  child  before 
marriage.  Superficial  friendliness  is  common,  but  few  are  conscious  of  any 
deeper  feeling.  There  is  only  one  natural  feeling  which  lives  here  as  else- 
where, and  often  enough  breaks  down  all  barriers,  and  that  is  maternal  love. 
Even  this  is  flawed  very  soon  in  Fiji  by  the  bad  bringing-up  of  the  boys  ;  the 
father  teaches  them  to  beat  their  mother,  and  not  be  cowards  enough  to  do  what 
a  woman  tells  them. 

The  practice  of  shutting  off  a  tribal  group  by  the  exclusion  or  subordination 
of  marriages  out  of  the  tribe  has  no  doubt  political  importance,  but  has  never  had 

a  favourable  effect  on  the  family.  Where  the 
societies  connected  through  the  mother  are  able  to 
keep  themselves  clearly  distinct,  they  are  based  on 
a  cleavage  in  the  tribe,  as  in  the  case  of  exogamy. 
Typical  cases  are  the  Maori  Iiapu-sysY^ra.,  and  the 
East  Melanesian  veve.  Hapu  signifies  the  womb, 
in  the  sense  of  that  which  bears  the  family  within 
it.  Every  Iiapu  has  its  tutelary  god,  who  is  figured 
as  a  bundle  of  reeds ;  it  cultivates  the  land  in  common, 
intermarries,  and  inherits  by  "  mother- right."  The 
oldest  member  represents  its  rights,  especially  in 
the  event  of  a  partition  or  division  of  land.  Not- 
withstanding that  the  hapu  is  subdivided  into  wtianau 
or  families,  all  the  members  claim  relationship  with 
their  chief,  and  bear  a  common  name,  which  they 
profess  to  derive  from  the  most  remote  ancestor. 
Owing  to  intermarriage  within  the  hapus,  together 
with  "  mother -right,"  the  /««/«(! -organisation  does 
not  run  parallel  with  the  village -divisions  ;  as  a 
rule,  several  hapus  are  found  co- existing  in  one 
village  or  pah^  while  the  same  hapu  will  be  distri- 

Fly-whisk,  from  the  Society  Islands — one-    ,  ,  .  .,,  a  i  t    •    • 

sixth  real  size.    (Christy  Collection.)      buted    among    various   Villages.      Another   division, 

iwi,  exists  among  the  Maoris,  embracing  all  who 
came  over  in  the  same  boat.  The  name  signifies  "  bone,"  and  thus  a  deeper 
foundation,  similar  to  that  of  the  hapu  is  not  excluded.  In  Melanesia  the 
term  "  one  side  of  the  house "  signifies  the  same  thing  as  hapu,  or  the  two 
veve  (mothers)  into  which  the  whole  tribe  is  divided.  In  Fiji  it  is  veita  "  root." 
The  children  always  belong  to  the  mother's  family ;  the  husband's  nearest 
relations,  by  whom  his  own  family  is  carried  on,  are  his  sister's  children.  A 
man  must  always  marry  a  wife  from  the  other  group.  The  two  families 
again  branch  off  into  four,  and  these  again  into  several  subdivisions.  All 
who  bear  a  common  name  regard  themselves  as  blood-relations,  and  marriages 
between  them  are  incestuous.  This  tie  is  often  the  only  one  that  holds,  and 
thus  it  acquires  political  importance.  Here,  as  everywhere,  the  exogamic  groups 
possess  cognisances,  or,  as  we  might  say,  family  arms  ;  most  often  animals  or 
plants,  to  which  they  believe  themselves  to  be  in  some  way  related.      Among  the 


THE  FAMILY  AND    THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA 


279 


Melanesians  this  symbol  is  called  tamanin  or  ponto,  "  resemblance  "  ;  among  the 
Polynesians  atua.  They  wear  it  both  in  their  tattooing  and  in  the  ornamentation 
of  their  weapons.  Inanimate  objects  also,  paddles,  nets,  whisks,  are  among  these 
signs,  said  to  have  been  granted  by  the  gods  ;  and  their  protective  power  is 
honoured  by  solemn  dances.  Prohibitions  in  respect  of  what  may  be  hunted 
or  eaten  are  connected  with  them.  That  similar  relations  may  at  any  time 
come  into  existence  is  shown  by 
the  sudden  cessation  of  all  banana- 
planting  in  Ulawu,  after  an  influ- 
ential man  had  announced  on  his 
death -bed  that  he  was  going  to 
turn  into  a  banana. 

The  sacrifice  of  the  family,  as 
if  it  were  a  transitory  appearance 
on  the  surface  of  the  unchangeable 
tribe,  comes  most  clearly  to  view 
in  the  regulations  as  to  property 
and  inheritance.  The  husband  can 
take  nothing  of  his  wife's  property, 
while  when  he  dies  she  only  keeps 
what  he  has  given  to  her.  The 
brother  of  the  deceased  is  the  rightful 
heir,  while  in  marrying  she  loses 
nothing  but  her  name.  The  right 
of  the  female  line  is  valid  in  the 
succession ;  but  the  right  of  the 
male  line  has  already  tried  here 
and  there  to  acquire  validity,  or 
has  even  achieved  it  to  a  large 
extent.  Property  and  rank  are 
conferred  by  the  mother  ;  the  king's 
successors  are  the  male  offspring  of 
his  sister.  Thus  in  Tonga,  in  the 
chiefs'  families  a  high  rank  was 
assigned  to  the  elder  sister  or 
aunt,  in  the  reigning  family  indeed 
higher  than  that  taken  by  the 
Tuitonga.  In  Fiji  the  brothers 
first  succeeded,  and  failing  these, 
the    sons.       No    married    princess 

could  attain  to  this  rank.  Thus,  in  Pelew  the  king's  wife  is  never  the  women's 
queen,  for  it  is  forbidden  to  marry  in  the  same  family  ;  but  the  women's  titles 
are  like  those  of  the  men  attached  to  seniority.  Thus,  in  order  to  avoid  any 
interlacing  of  the  two  spheres  of  sovereignty,  the  chief  may  not  marry  any  chief's 
daughter. 

The  children  inherit  their  mother's  home,  which  often  leads  to  chaotic  com- 
plications. Relationships  by  the  female  side,  on  which  the  pedigrees  rest,  fuses 
with  the  (2/'«^«-system  ;  the  alleged  sons  of  the  same  mother  may  not  injure  each 


Fly-whisks  (chiefs  insignia),  from  the  Society  Islands- 
one-fifth  real  size.      (Christy  Collection. ) 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Other,  but  also  must  not  marry  into  each  other's  families.  It  is  indeed  a  gift  of 
the  gods.  Kubary  gives  the  following  extraordinary  account  of  the  relations 
existing  in  the  Palau  or  Pelew  Islands:  "The  King  of  Molegojok,  with  which 
Korror  is  at  hereditary  feud,  is  a  native  of  Aremolunguj,  while  the  King  of  Korror 
comes  from  a  Molegojok  family  ;  both  have  to  fight  against  their  own  homes. 
Rgogor,  the  most  powerful  chief  of  Korror,  is  the  son  of  a  native  of  Ngiwal ; 
while  Karaj,  the  first  minister  of  Angarard,  and  Iraklaj,  the 
King  of  Molegojok,  are  sisters'  children,  and  yet  in  opposite 
political  camps." 

Class-divisions  among  the  Polynesians  are,  by  reason  of 
taboo,  as  sharp  as  in  the  most  thorough  system  of  caste. 
They  fall  into  those  which  participate  in  the  divine,  and  those 
which  are  wholly  excluded  from  it.  The  aristocratic  principle 
is  seldom  carried  to  such  an  extreme  as  here,  where  a  stern 
psychology  remains  inexorable  even  beyond  the  grave.  In 
Tonga  the  native  people,  in  contradistinction  to  the  immigrant 
nobles,  are  regarded  as  having  no  immortal  souls  ;  while  the 
souls  of  nobles  return  from  the  next  world  and  inspire  those  of 
their  own  order  for  the  priesthood,  so  that  the  connection  of 
the  tabooed  class  with  the  gods  is  never  interrupted.  The 
boundary  between  these  two  classes  is  not  everywhere  alike, 
though  the  divisions  into  chiefs,  freemen,  or  slaves  runs  through 
all  Polynesia.  In  the  Marquesas  the  untabooed  class  comprises 
all  women  with  their  male  attendants,  as  well  as  singers  and 
dancers  ;  in  Rapa  indeed  all  men  were  sacred,  and  had  to 
be  fed  by  the  women.  Of  the  men  of  rank  the  greater  number 
are  connected  by  ties  of  relationship,  the  memory  of  which  is 
preserved  by  professed  genealogists,  with  the  aid  of  pedigree- 
sticks.  The  remembrance  goes  far  back.  When  the  palace 
in  Hawaii  was  dedicated  none  were  admitted  save  those  who 
were  connected  with  the  sovereign  in  the  tenth  or  some  less 
degree.  Nobility  carries  practical  advantages  in  the  shape  of 
high  posts  of  state.  There  are  oligarchies,  where  the  smaller 
chiefs  take  their  part  in  the  government  by  performing  inferior 
Fly  whisk  (insignia  of  a  serviccs  as  diplomatic  envoys,  intermediaries  in  secret  matters 
chief),  from  Pelew  Is-  of  council,  and  such  like.      The  child   of  a  chief  belonging  to 

lands — one-eighth  real     ,         ^-r     •    i  r        i  i  o      a 

size.  (British  Museum.)  the  t-liri,  born  of  a  low-class  mother,  is  put  to  death.  But  in 
some  cases  a  man  can  overstep  these  boundaries,  as  in  Tonga, 
where  clever  craftsmen  from  among  the  people  are  raised  to  the  tabooed  class 
as  Tubunas.      Outwardly,  social  intercourse  displays  itself  in  pleasing  forms. 

In  Micronesia  the  division  of  classes  is  equally  into  nobles,  freemen,  and  slaves. 
The  first,  with  the  priests,  are  the  most  influential,  the  freemen  the  most  numerous  ; 
the  two  often  coincide  or  break  up  again  into  definite  classes.  Since,  however,  in 
many  cases  property  gives  higher  rank  than  birth,  there  are  nobles  who,  as  owners 
of  a  district,  rise  to  the  position  of  little  kings.  Where,  as  in  the  Mortlocks,  a 
population  of  3500  is  divided  into  ten  tribes  and  sixteen  states,  the  road  from  the 
chief  to  the  noble  is  naturally  as  short  as  that  from  despotism  to  oligarchy. 

In  East  Melanesia  the  classes  correspond  with  the  Polynesian  divisions.     In 


THE  FAMILY  AND   THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA 


Fiji  we  find  the  distribution  by  businesses,  as  in  Tonga.  Here  there  are  individual 
tribes  who  carry  on  a  distinct  trade — sailors,  fishermen,  or  carpenters.  There  are 
even  special  villages  of  fighting-men,  fishermen,  carpenters,  physicians,  artists  in 
hair,  potters.  The  most  despised  of  all  classes  are  the  coolies.  Even  in  New 
Guinea  every  Motu  village  is  distinguished  for  some  one  industry,  one  for  its 
women's  dressmaking,  another  for  its  shell  orna- 
ments, others  for  pottery  or  coco-palm  planting. 
In  regard  to  the  certain  existence  of  slavery  in 
these  districts  there  is  room  for  doubt.  It  has 
always  been  lightly  assumed.  In  the  west,  where 
the  feeble  political  structure  does  not  allow  of 
warfare  on  a  large  scale,  slavery  is  often  absent  ; 
but  in  the  Solomons  we  meet  with  it,  accompany- 
ing a  more  vigorous  development  of  chief's 
authority.  It  used  to  prevail  even  more  exten- 
sively in  Fiji  where  successful  risings  of  slaves 
even  took  place. 

An  essential  part,  it  not  the  very  nucleus  of 
the  state,  must  be  sought  in  societies,  embracing 
the  greatest  number  of  the  freemen  in  the  bond 
of  common  interests  or  the  practice  of  a  kind  of 
freemasonry.  With  their  secret  influence  and 
their  public  festive  gatherings,  they  are  one  of  the 
most  significant  features  in  the  life  of  these  races, 
especially  the  Melanesians.  Their  objects  are  of 
a  partly  political,  partly  economic  kind,  and  the 
religious  pretext  is  often  solid,  but  often  also 
threadbare.  In  the  Banks  Islands  and  New 
Hebrides  members  of  the  leagues  called  supwe  or 
suque  hold  quite  the  place  of  the  chiefs.  Their 
importance  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  strength  of 
the  constitution  ;  and  at  the  same  time  the  influ- 
ence which  each  one  exercises  is  measured  by  his 
rank  or  class.  Those  at  the  top  decide  who  shall, 
after  due  payment,  rise  into  another  class  ;  who 
shall  be  excluded,  and  so  on  ;  the  essential  distinc- 
tion between  them  and  the  chiefs  being  all  the 
less  from  the  fact  that  in  other  islands  the  chiefship 

is  often    elective  and  limited  by  a  council  of  elders.  Paddles  (chiefs  insignia),  from  New  Zea- 
land—  one -sixth    real    size.       (Christy 

In  the  popular  tales,  the  poor  orphan  boy,  favoured       collection.) 
by  fortune,  who  elsewhere  would  marry  the  king's 

daughter,  here  attains  the  highest  rank  in  the  suque.  Thus  in  different  ways  a 
powerful  bias  to  aristocracy  makes  itself  felt.  The  best-known  society  of  this  kind 
was  the  Ehri  ox  Areoi  of  Tahiti,  who  formed  a  league  traced  back  to  the  foundation 
of  a  god.  A  grand  master  presided  over  each  of  the  twelve  classes,  the  seven  grades 
of  which  were  distinguished  by  their  tattooing ;  and  all  were  bound  in  a  close 
comradeship.  Being  warriors,  they  must  remain  celibate  ;  and  if  they  should  have 
children,  these  must  be  killed.     Their  lands  are  tended  by  slaves.     Even  the  first 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Europeans  found  the  league  degenerated  ;  it  went  about  like  a  dramatic  troupe,  an 
example  of  low  immorality.  Every  race  of  Micronesia  is  broken  up  into  closely 
united  societies.  Among  the  nobles  this  takes  the  character  of  a  retinue  ;  and  one 
may  occasionally  recognise  in  it  some  connection  with  inheritance  in  the  female  line. 
Thus  in  the  Ralick  Islands  the  ruling  chiefs  belong  to  one  clan,  their  sons  to 
another ;  the  chief  must  marry  into  the  clan  of  his  sons,  and  descent  is  reckoned 
by  the  mother.  The  Micronesian  bais,  both  of  freemen  and  bondmen,  appear  at 
the  same  time  as  phalansteries,  with  the  object  of  organising  labour.  These  have 
been  compared  with  regiments,  and  the  obligation  to  enter  them  with  compulsory 

service.  All  boys  must  be  entered  in 
their  fifth  or  sixth  year.  One  union, 
however,  never  comprises  more  than 
from  thirty-five  to  forty  individuals  prac- 
tically of  the  same  age,  so  that  an  older 
man  belongs  to  three  or  four  bais.  If 
an);-  one  gets  a  rise  in  rank,  he  must 
pay  a  sum  of  money  to  each  person 
belonging  to  the  same.  There  is  also 
a  women's  union;  but  they  have  no 
house  of  their  own. 

This  arrangement  recurs  in  a  similar 
form  in  Melanesia.  We  find  its  earliest 
forms  in  the  West :  New  Britain  has 
its  Duk-duk ;  New  Guinea  and  New 
Caledonia  something  akin.  Everywhere 
some  kind  of  ghost  business  comes  in  ; 
it  is  even  implied  in  the  names.  The 
masquerades  are  said  to  represent  ghosts; 
and  the  strange  noises  that  proceed  from 
the  strictly  unapproachable  holy  places 
The  suque  became  at  last  a  social  and  public  institution, 
but  formerly  it  was  said  to  secure  for  its  members  a  life  in  a  beautiful  place, 
while  the  souls  of  non-members  remained  hanging  to  the  trees  like  flying-foxes. 
The  initiated  learn  nothing  beyond  dances  and  songs,  and  how  to  mask  them- 
selves and  how  to  behave.  Less  indecency  than  rumour  whispered  seems  to 
have  prevailed  in  these  conventicles.  Women  and  children  are  excluded  ;  only 
in  the  nangas  of  Fiji  are  women  admitted,  as  is  natural.  In  the  tamata  of  the 
Banks  Islands  what  we  may  call  a  lively  club-life  has  been  developed.  Formerly 
hard  tests  involving  physical  pain  were  attached  to  admission  ;  but  now  every- 
thing seems  to  have  become  much  gentler  and  more  cheerful.  In  the  Duk-duk 
of  New  Britain  a  secret  society  assumed  the  character  of  a  "  Vehme,"  and  at  last 
exercised  a  real  reign  of  terror  with  its  extortions  and  executions. 

Chief  among  the  institutions  which  are  independent  of,  and  work  counter  to, 
the  systems  known  as  hapu,  veve,  kema,  etc.,  stands  the  family.  In  Micronesia  it 
recognises  one  head  as  the  common  centre  of  all  the  widely-scattered  members, 
each  of  whom  is  named  after  his  place  of  abode.  This  is  managed  by  the  eldest 
like  an  entailed  property,  attached  to  his  name  and  title,  and  inherited  by  the 
next  eldest.     The  chiefs  tutelary  god  is  conceived  to  be  attached  to  this  house,  so 


Chief  of  Tae  in  the  Morllocks.      (Godeffroy  Album. ) 


have  a  terrifying  effect. 


THE  FAMILY  AND   THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA 


283 


%Mn 


that  it  often  receives  more  veneration  than  the  chief  himself.     While  he  is  alive 
he  has  another  house  built  for  his  wife  and  children,  since  after  his  death  they 
have  to  make  way  for  his  eldest  brother,  or  the  eldest 
son  of  some  former  head  of  the  family.  ^ 

As  regards  the  distribution  of  property,  the  Pacific 
Islands  offer  a  picture  of  great  variety.  Between 
common  possession  and  private  ownership  lies  the 
curious  apportionment  of  real  property,  which  under 
"  mother-right "  devolves  jointly,  even  to  the  crude  form 
existing  among  the  Kemas  of  Florida,  who  on  the  death 
of  a  member  devour  all  his  goods.  In  general,  here  as 
elsewhere,  Melanesia  offers  the  simplest  conditions  ;  in 
Polynesia  the  transforming  forces  of  the  political  develop- 
ment in  the  direction  of  monarchy,  and  the  husband's 
power  of  independent  acquisition,  have  had  their  effect, 
and  that  again  more  in  the  east  and  north  than  in  the 
south.  Even  before  the  inroads  of  Europeans  the  feeling 
for  ownership  had  brought  about  distinctions  ;  thus  in 
small  districts  like  the  Gilbert  Islands,  the  laws  of 
individual  property  and  inheritance  are  not  very  different 
from  ours,  allowing  for  the  encroachment  of  adoption, 
while  social  position  is  essentially  determined  by  property 
in  land.  But  there  are  a  number  of  institutions  which 
tend  to  level  the  differences,  as  admission  by  purchase 
into  the  higher  grades  of  the  secret  societies,  the  yearly 
suspension  of  all  rights  of  property  during  the  great 
festivals,  or,  in  Samoa,  the  parties  of  pleasure  among 
friends  and  relations,  at  which  the  sucking-pig  plays  an 
important  part,  and  which  resulted  in  so  much  extra- 
vagance, leading  to  insolvency,  that  in  1888  King 
Tamasese  found  it  necessary  to  put  a  stop  to  them.^ 

Ownership  in  the  soil  is  respected  within  the  close 
community  of  the  village,  but  not  always  beyond  its 
limits.  The  soil  is  everywhere  divided  into  village- 
lands,  fields,  or  gardens,  and  waste.  The  former  are 
accurately  known,  parcel  by  parcel,  while  to  the  last 
there  is  no  clear  title ;  though  in  Fiji  its  alienation  by 
the  chiefs  seems  to  have  been  felt  as  an  infringement 
of  the  common  rights  of  property.  The  sale  of  land 
was  not  at  all  usual  in  pre-European  times.  In  view 
of  the  facts  that  the  land  of  the  "  two  sides  "  often  lies 
mixed  up  in  small  plots  of  ground,  so  that  land  which 
the  father  has  reclaimed  is  to  be  found  all  among  the 
mother's  hereditary  domains,  and  that  the  rights  to  fruit 
trees  and  to  the  soil  may  be  vested  in  different  persons, 


Feather  Sceptre  from  Hawaii. 
(Christy  Collection. ) 


'  [For  an  account  of  these  malanga,  see  Stevenson,  A  Footnote  to  History,  p.  2.  He  says  nothing  about 
any  prohibition  on  Tamasese's  part.  Perhaps  it  extended  only  to  the  districts  owning  that  puppet-monarch's 
authority.] 


284  THE  HISTOKY  OF  MANKIND 


the  problems  of  conveyance  are  often  insoluble.  There  is  no  private  property  in 
land,  only  a  usufruct  through  the  family  which  cultivates  its  piece.  Only  what  a 
man  has  cleared  and  tilled  with  his  own  hand  and  the  help  of  his  children  remains 
his  own  and  passes  to  them.  Claims  to  rent  on  the  part  of  the  chiefs  do  not  seem 
primitive.  But  at  the  present  day,  if  in  the  Solomon  Islands  a  subject  omits  to  hand 
over  to  the  chief  a  portion  of  his  profits  from  the  harvest,  or  the  fishery,  or  of  booty 
taken,  he  commits  a  delinquency.  In  Fiji,  military  services,  which  took  precedence  of 
all  others,  led  in  the  event  of  a  success  to  new  grants  of  land,  with  all  the  inhabitants 
as  slaves  ;  entailing  fresh  obligations  on  the  recipients.  In  many  cases  the  entire 
relation  of  subjects  to  a  prince  became  one  of  gifts  on  the  side  of  the  former  only. 
The  conditions  of  property  among  the  Maoris  perhaps  correspond  most  nearly  to 
a  primitive  state  of  things.  We  may  suppose  that  no  individual  possession  was 
valid  here,  each  regarding  the  common  land  as  his  own.  In  other  places  a 
wounded  man  could  claim  a  title  to  ground  on  which  drops  of  his  blood  had 
fallen.  Hunting  and  fishing  grounds  remained  common  property.  In  Melanesia 
sons  could  enter  as  heirs  upon  property  left  by  their  father  on  condition  of  in- 
demnifying his  nephews  by  gifts  of  pigs,  teeth,  or  shells.  If  he  left  only  daughters, 
the  nephews  of  the  male  side  inherited  in  preference ;  and  under  this  law  the 
children's  property  was  several,  while  in  the  case  of  nephews  and  others  inheriting 
under  mother-right  it  remained  collective.  Among  the  Maoris  the  strict  rule 
seems  to  have  been  broken  in  this  respect,  that  tribal  property  was  inalienable. 
According  as  the  husband  lived  with  the  wife's  tribe,  or  the  wife  with  the  hus- 
band's, the  children  followed.  But  the  maternal  tribe  always  claims  the  child 
of  those  who  pertain  to  it,  even  when  they  have  married  into  another.  The  loss 
which  a  tribe  undergoes  by  the  transference  of  children  born  within  it,  and  their 
property,  to  the  mother's  tribe,  the  latter  endeavours  to  supply  by  gifts  of  land. 
But  since  the  children  generally  marry  in  the  same  tribe,  the  land  never  passes 
out  of  the  tribe's  ownership.  Class  and  tribal  organisation  with  the  Polynesians 
forbids  a  distribution  of  the  soil  among  families,  but  it  could  not,  in  the  event  of 
the  great  development  of  a  chiefs  power,  prevent  the  tribal  right  from  being 
administered  by  an  individual.  Thus  in  Hawaii  tribal  rights  of  ownership  have 
become  transferred  to  the  chief,  and  his  subjects  either  cultivate  a  portion  of  the 
land  for  him,  or  else  have  to  offer  him  the  first-fruits  of  every  harvest,  or  render 
compulsory  service  two  days  out  of  seven.  Till  quite  recently  he  even  received  a 
quarter  of  all  wages  earned  by  his  subjects.  They  belonged  to  the  land  ;  and  the 
lower  classes  were  treated  as  serfs,  bound  to  the  soil.  A  proof  that  this  depend- 
ence was  patriarchal,  and  not  felt  as  oppressive,  is  furnished  by  the  fact  that  the 
sudden  abolition  of  it  through  Christianity  has  been  indicated  as  one  cause  of  the 
decrease  of  the  population.  In  Tonga  also  a  similar  system  has  grown  up,  while 
in  the  Gilberts  the  population  is  divided  into  Tokker,  landowners  ;  Torro,  people 
who  are  allowed  to  enjoy  the  usufruct  of  the  land ;  and  Bei,  landless  varlets,  whom 
the  lord  can  make  into  Torro  by  a  grant  of  land.  The  owners  govern  almost 
exclusively,  even  where  there  are  nominal  kings.  Almost  everywhere  in  Polynesia, 
indeed,  the  larger  landowners  generally  exercise  influence  on  the  government. 
The  Bei,  though  distinguished  neither  by  clothing  nor  way  of  life,  seldom  marry 
into  the  higher  classes. 

The  laws  of  taboo  {tapu,  in   Melanesia  tambu)  have  developed,  especially  in 
Polynesia,  in  so  partial  a  fashion,  that  they  have  passed  beyond  the  limits  of  a 


THE  FAMILY  AND   THE   STATE  IN  OCEANIA 


28s 


religious  ban,  and  hamper  all  free  n:iovement  as  much  as  does  caste  among  the 
Indian  races.  Only  the  law  of  taboo  does  not  merely  divide  mankind  by  im- 
passable gaps,  it  simply  cuts  the  entire  world  in  two,  and  that  so  sharply  that 
the  whole  excluded  portion  of  mankind  was  constantly  in  danger  of  missing  the 
sacred  boundary.  Everything  on  earth,  with  the  exception  of  men,  falls  into  the 
two  classes  of  moa  or  sacred,  and  noa  or  common.  Everything  upon  which  the 
power  of  the  taboo  is  conceived  as  ipso  facto  resting  belongs  to  the  first,  since  it 
is  the  property  of  the  gods  and  of  privileged  men,  or  always  reserved  for  these. 
To  the  second  belongs  whatever  is  taboo-free,  and  so  allowed  to  be  used  by  all 
men.  But  in  addition  to  this,  taboo  can  be  transferred  by  mere  external  contact. 
It  is  nevertheless  possible  to  enfranchise  by 
certain  ceremonies  that  which  has  been  tabooed, 
and  thus  also  to  set  men  free  from  it.  If,  in 
consequence  of  this,  the  political  and  social  im- 
portance of  the  notion  of  taboo  disguises  its 
religious  nucleus,  this  exists  none  the  less.  Wc 
have  here  before  us  a  conception  which  has 
grown  out  from  the  religious  sphere,  the  use  of 
which  in  the  art  of  government  early  secured  it 
an  extension  into  the  political  domain,  which 
is  no  less  subtle  than  unscrupulous.  Besides 
the  gods,  the  forces  of  taboo  are  also  at  the 
disposal  of  men  who  are  possessed  of  the  god- 
like spirit,  though,  as  it  appears,  not  in  the  same 
degree.  Every  one  else  and  almost  all  women 
were  excluded  from  it.  We  may  easily  see  that 
among  these  races  who  bring  the  divine  and 
the  human  into  extremely  close  relations,  the 
operations  of  taboo,  originally  a  divine  force, 
must  penetrate  intimately  all  earthly  conditions  ; 
so  intimately,  indeed,  that  in   unhistoric  minds 

the  idea  might  easily  become  established  that  taboo  was  in  reality  invented 
only  for  social  and  political  objects.  In  any  case  it  is  very  easy  to  be  misled. 
By  means  of  taboo  personal  property  is  secured ;  at  one  time  that  which 
belongs  to  a  noble,  and  therefore  tabooed,  person  cannot  be  used  by  others  ; 
at  another  time  he,  as  the  conveyer  of  taboo,  is  in  a  position  to  taboo 
the  property  of  others.  It  works  beneficently  if,  under  fear  of  a  bad  harvest, 
the  crop  is  tabooed  with  a  view  of  preventing  famine,  until  such  time  as 
the  chief  removes  the  taboo  from  the  fields.  In  Tonga,  as  well  as  in  Hawaii, 
it  was  the  custom,  when  great  festivities  were  celebrated  with  immoderate 
extravagance,  to  lay  a  taboo  on  certain  produce ;  every  landowner  can  in  this 
way  protect  his  own  piece  of  ground  from  persons  lower  in  rank  ;  or  even  such 
fishing -places  as  are  reckoned  private  property.  The  fact  that  taboo  is  so 
frequently  laid  upon  articles  of  food,  is  due  to  the  further  reason  that  everything 
connected  with  the  tutelary  deity  of  a  tribe  in  animal  form — the  atua — must  not 
be  touched  by  those  that  belonged  to  the  tribe.  The  soul-eating  of  the  gods,  a 
religious  method  of  expressing  wonder  at  the  enigmatic  process  of  digestion,  plays 
equally  a  part  in  this,  and,  lastly,  selfishness  is  not  without  its  effect.     Thus,  in 


King  Lunalilo  of  Hawaii, 
graph.) 


(From  a  photo- 


286 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


the  western  islands,  there  were  forests,  roads,  beaches,  which  were  tambu.  Un- 
doubtedly, in  the  later  times  of  religious  corruption,  taboo  was  shamelessly 
misused   for  the  selfish  objects  of  priests  and  chiefs.     Thus  once  upon  a  time 


Samoan  warrior  in  ta/a-clothing.     (From  the  Godeffroy  Album). 

King  Kamehameha  I.,  who  more  than  anyone  else  profited  by  this  power  to 
serve  his  political  ends,  laid  a  taboo  on  a  mountain  near  Honolulu,  because  he 
took    the    quartz   crystals    found    there   for    diamonds.      When    Hawaii   in    1840 


THE  FAMILY  AND    THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA 


287 


tabooed  for  the  space  of  five  years  all  the  herds  of  oxen  which  were  being 
unmercifully  decimated,  taboo  became  a  measure  of  government.  The  old  sacred 
taboo  becomes  a  police  regulation.  Formerly  its  influence  cannot  have  been  so 
extensive,  since  divinity  was  limited  to'the  kings  ;  now  it  has  been  spread  over  all 
the  business  of  life. 

Even  where  the  custom  itself  has  become  remote  from  its  religious  origin,  the 
penalties  for  breach  of  taboo  have  retained  a  religious  character.  Thus,  too,  the 
strongest  trespasses  against  taboo  obviously  lay  in  the  religious  direction.  Desecra- 
tions of  temples  were  the  greatest  sins.  The  penalties,  indeed,  fall  mostly  upon 
the  lower  classes  and  the  women  ;  for  persons  of  rank  there  are  means  of  averting 
ill  consequences.  The  old  faith  is  falling  to  pieces  ;  while  it  still  stood  unbroken 
Polynesian   religion    often    demanded  what  was    impossible.       In   Tahiti   nobody 


Ear-button  and  war-amulet  of  whale  tooth,  from  the  Marquesas — two-thirds  real  size. 
(Christy  Collection.) 


might  sleep  with  his  feet  turned  towards  the  mawai ;  in  New  Zealand  the  mere 
looking  at  a  corpse  involved  taboo.  Sick  people  were  tabooed  because  the  illness 
was  caused  by  an  atua,  new-born  children  because  they  belonged  to  the  gods, 
women  in  child-bed  on  account  of  the  child,  and  corpses  because  the  soul  hovered 
round  them.  Whoever  had  taken  up  a  dead  man  might  not  touch  food  before 
the  priests  had  made  atonement  for  him  by  reciting  the  hymn  of  creation.  Thus 
breaches  of  taboo  could  easily  be  committed  by  inexperienced  Europeans,  and 
therein  lay  a  main  cause  of  serious  conflicts.  Let  us  just  imagine  how,  from  the 
spiritual  and  secular  centres  of  these  races,  taboo  spread  as  a  burdensome  and 
threatening  epidemic.  In  New  Zealand  it  could  even  be  incurred  by  the  naming 
of  any  article  belonging  to  a  person  of  rank.  If  in  any  village  a  strong  taboo 
prevailed,  owing  to  the  tattooing  of  some  lads,  the  whole  village  was  tabooed. 
In  Tahiti,  when  a  man  of  rank  fell  ill,  the  whole  district  of  which  he  was  the 
head  was  declared  taboo  by  the  priests.  Universal  silence  must  reign,  no  boat 
might  sail,  no  food  be  cooked,  no  fire  lighted.  Taboo  enters  into  the  life  of  the 
lower  classes  in  so  burdensome  a  fashion  as  to  produce  a  universal  oppression,  which 
the  priests  and  chiefs  well  understood  how  to  turn  to  political  account. 


288 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Variations  of  detail  indicate  that  here  and  there  the  inconvenience  was 
mitigated  by  a  tacit  understanding.     Taboo-free  persons  were  required  to  feed 

those  under  taboo,  and 
^Vfe=£,\vi^  ~linWI''ll^Bs^s^==^^=^^^^s^=^;z:zi^        for  this  purpose  slaves 
■*  ^^^^     captured  in  war   were 

very  useful,  since  hav- 
ing passed  out  of  the 
authority  of  their  own 
tribal  tutelary  spirit, 
and  not  come  under 
the  new  one,  they 
were  incapable  of  vio- 
lating a  taboo.  There 
must  also  be  some 
means  of  removing  a 
taboo,  since  otherwise 
it  would  spread  by 
contagion  until  all  the 
free-will  and  uncon- 
strained action  of  a 
people  was  stifled. 
The  removal  involves 
various  ceremonies. 
Many  of  its  effects, 
indeed,  are  indelible, 
and  are  interwoven 
with  the  life  of  genera- 
tions to  come,  even 
when  they  are  no  longer 
understood.  Thus  the 
names  of  dead  chiefs, 
the  spots  where  they 
have  died,  large  burial- 
places,  are  tabooed ; 
which  explains  why  in 
even  the  more  thicklyr 
peopled  islands  many 
uninhabited  tracts  are 
found.  Christianity, 
too,  has  been  willing  to  make  use  of  taboo  to  enforce  its  requirement  of  humble 
and  obedient  hearts. 

In  the  society  of  the  small  islands,  cloven  as  it  is  by  reason  of  mother-right, 
caste,  and  secret  societies,  and  with  a  powerful  priestly  class,  we  seldom  meet  with 
kings,  in  the  European  sense,  such  as  Kamehameha  I.  Europeans  found  them 
because  they  looked  for  them ;  and  many  first  rose  to  greatness  by  means  of  the 
presents  received  from  Europeans  and  the  respect  paid  by  them.  In  New  Zealand 
the  ariki,  or  divine  chief,  instructed  by  his  father  or  grandfather  in  the  sacred 
traditions,  stood  high  above  secular  chiefs  and  priests.      He  comprised  in  himself 


Warrior  of  the  Solomon  Islands.      (From  the  Godeffroy  Album.) 


THE  FAMILY  AND   THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA 


289 


the  power  of  both,  could  put  on  and  take  off  taboo,  or  decide  the  time  for  field- 
operations,  and  the  places  for  burials.  On  the  other  hand,  the  spiritual  power  or 
mana  of  the  chief,  if  he  were  not  ariki  as  well,  depended  on  his  personal  authority  ; 
and  the  mana  of  the  priest,  if  he  again  were  not  also  ariki,  was  only  obeyed  in 
respect  of  his  relation  to  the  gods.  Thus,  too,  hereditary  chiefship  is  only  recognised 
where  it  is  believed  that  there  has  been  a  transmission  of  the  mana.     The  mystical 


Fijian  warrior.      (From  the  Godeffroy  Album. ) 

element  in  this  conception  exercises  a  great  power  over  people's  minds.  When 
a  powerful  chief  in  the  New  Hebrides  has  his  son  brought  up  as  a  Christian,  it  is 
taken  for  granted  that  the  spiritual  force  which  would  qualify  him  for  the  succes- 
sion vanishes.  So  again  in  the  Solomon  Islands  the  dignity  of  a  chief  is  in 
general  not  hereditary ;  but  the  bravest  man  is  elected  to  the  post  by  the  elders. 
In  some  other  islands,  too,  the  elders  have  the  paramount  influence,  while  the  chiefs 
dignity  is  merely  nominal.  Similarly  the  elders  are  the  priests,  the  mediators 
between  the  living  and  the  dead,  and  what  is  tabooed  by  them  is  sacred. 
Practical  experience  has  taught  white  men  that  in  New  Britain  and  New  Ireland 

U 


290  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


even  the  greatness  of  power  which  they  wish  to  see  the  chiefs  possess  in  the 
interests  of  order  is  hardly  to  be  artificially  created  ;  and  the  same  in  New  Guinea. 
On  the  other  hand,  wherever  warlike  conditions  prevailed,  the  dignity  of  the  chief 
grew  in  importance.  It  was  especially  so  in  Fiji,  where  we  have  a  completely 
military  organisation,  under  which  the  villages  tributary  to  one  chief,  and  governed 
by  chiefs  of  lower  rank,  were  divided  into  official  districts.  The  appellations  of 
the  chiefs  also  point  to  their  military  character.  Often  they  appear  merely  as 
doughty  warriors  who,  if  they  do  not  spring  from  a  family  of  the  rank  of  chiefs, 
have  been  adopted  into  one  on  account  of  their  courage.  Saturated  as  this  life  ■ 
is  with  religion,  and  military  as  is  its  character,  a  splitting  of  the  kingship  between 
a  peace-king  with  shadowy  power  and  a  war-king  was  sure  to  follow.  Thus 
beside  the  head  of  the  state  another  figure  often  towers  up,  whether  the  war-chief 
or,  as  in  Radack,  the  commander  of  the  great  ship.  In  Samoa  the  chiefship  has 
undergone  a  development  in  the  direction  of  aristocracy ;  in  Hawaii,  in  that  of 
monarchy.  In  the  Samoan  party-fights,  which  since  1876  have  come  into  contact 
with  European  politics,  the  electoral  chiefs  always  came  to  the  front,  while  the 
king  appeared  dependent  on  them.  In  the  neighbouring  Gilberts  the  preponder- 
ance of  landowners  has  created  a  sort  of  plutocracy.  They  recur  in  Hawaii  as 
Alii,  and  in  Kamehameha's  monarchical  constitution  they  held  a  modest  position 
as  the  "  assembly  of  chiefs,"  with  different  ranks  of  taboo.  A  representative 
intermediary  between  king  and  people  appears  in  some  form  everywhere ;  the 
fono  of  Samoa,  the  aha-alii  of  Hawaii,  show  it  in  various  stages  of  development.'*; 
It  has  a  strong  tendency  to  assume  the  character  of  a  secret  society.  Special 
assemblies  are  called  together  by  the  chief  or  his  representative  on  important 
occasions,  especially  when  war  threatens.  They  deliberate  often  for  days  together 
with  many  ceremonies  and  lengthy  speeches.  From  this  the  transition  to  modern 
constitutionalism  or  its  imitation  was  not  difficult.  The  constitution  of  Kame- 
hameha  III.  ordained  that  the  heir  to  the  crown  should  be  nominated  by  king 
and  chiefs  acting  together.  Failing  this  the  chiefs  were  to  do  what  was  necessary 
in  conjunction  with  the  representatives  of  the  people.  Here  again  the  aristocratic 
principle  corrects  the  patriarchal,  and  thus  the  high  pitch  which  despotism  has 
reached  rests  more  upon  the  pressure  of  class  and  caste  than  upon  the  over- 
powering will  of  a  single  man.  Its  profound  effects  can  only  be  explained  in 
this  way  ;  only  in  this  way  could  it  permeate  all  conditions  of  life.  In  any  case 
the  effects  were  far  less  upon  the  privileged  than  upon  those  who  had  no  rights 
— the  oppressed  ;  and  thence  also  came  the  sadly  rapid  decay  of  this  society. 

An  element  which  is  often  overlooked  among  the  state  institutions  of  the 
Oceanians  is  the  small  size  of  their  territories.  On  the  lowest  stage  of  the 
formation  of  states,  we  find  little  communes,  or  little  groups  of  communes,  allied  in 
blood,  which  vegetate  under  their  own  village  chiefs  or  elders.  In  the  largest  part 
of  New  Guinea,  even  these  dignitaries  are  lacking ;  social  and  family  relations 
embracing  also  political,  and  every  village  on  the  whole  forming  a  state  of  itself. 
In  the  Ruk  group,  they  speak  of  thirty-nine  tribes  and  seventy-three  states.  Since 
there  is  no  room  for  the  development  of  a  power  founded  upon  extensive  posses- 
sion in  land  and  people,  it  is  less  the  actual  conditions  of  power  than  traditions, 
personal  relations,  and  political  intrigues,  which  decide  matters  in  the  island  groups. 
A  certain  order  of  the  lands,  in  point  of  rank,  is  traditional  from  old  times  ;  only 
one  larger  archipelago  formed  a  single  state,  and  how  often  did  that  fall  to  pieces  ? 


THE  FAMILY  AND    THE   STATE  IN  OCEANIA 


291 


■a 


The  very  largest  islands,  New  Guinea  and  New  Zealand, 
never  possessed  a  single  state  of  any  importance. 

As  in  the  case  of  class  organisation,  so  also  in  the  govern- 
ment, there  is  a  patriarchal  air.  The  people  are  very  sensitive 
on  the  point  whether  the  king  takes  trouble,  or  utilises  the 
advantages  of  his  office  to  his  own  profit.  Thus  in  Kubary's 
time,  the  King  of  Korror  was  deposed  for  his  avarice.  In 
Tahiti,  strangers  might  see  the  king  putting  his  hand  to  the 
paddle  in  his  own  canoe,  and  the  meanest  man  could  speak 
freely  with  him.  These  are  the  humanising  effects  of  nature 
which  bestows  her  gifts  with  equal  freedom  on  rich  and  poor, 
and  of  the  small  scale  on  which  everything  was  constructed. 
But  traces  of  an  anarchical  time  emerge  even  more  strongly 
than  those  of  the  patriarchal.  Before  the  nomination  of  a 
successor,  an  interregnum  as  a  change  from  the  preceding 
and  subsequent  hard  times  of  compulsion  is  wont  to  loosen 
all  political  restraints  ;  it  is  a  legalised  anarchy. 

The  high  position  of  the  prince  is  expressed  in  a  number 
of  ceremonies,  putting  him  on  a  level  with  the  gods.  External 
insignia  are  reserved  for  him  in  the  first  place.  In  Hawaii 
feather- mantles  arid  necklaces  of  whales'  teeth ;  in  the 
Admiralty  Islands  double  chains  of  shells  ;  in  the  Solomons 
arm-rings  of  shell,  shell  trumpets,  fly-whisks,  and  other  things. 
Passers-by  had  to  throw  themselves  in  the  dust,  to  bare  their 
shoulders  or  strip  altogether ;  the  king  could  only  be  addressed 
when  sitting,  and  replied  through  a  special  orator.  He  was 
greeted  by  having  his  hands  and  feet  smelt ;  in  Hawaii,  a 
special  court-language  was  used  around  the  prince,  which  had 
to  remain  unknown  to  the  people,  otherwise  the  chiefs  changed 
it.  Samoa  also  had  its  court  language.^  In  Micronesia, 
since  the  name  of  a  chief  may  not  be  uttered,  he  takes  when 
entering  upon  his  dignities  a  name  by  way  of  title.  In 
Kasaie,  this  name  denotes  nothing  else  than  god  ;  anything 
recalling  former  names  is  sedulously  avoided.  A  chief  cannot 
eat  or  drink  out  of  the  dish  of  another,  nor  may  his  vessels 
be  used  by  others,  or  his  house  be  entered  by  any  one  uninvited. 
Not  only  have  the  commons  to  observe  all  this  in  regard  to 
the  chiefs,  but  the  chiefs  also  in  regard  to  their  superiors. 
In  the  Solomon  Islands,  any  one  who  steps  on  a  chiefs 
shadow  incurs  death,  or  at  least  a  severe  pecuniary  penalty, 
the  parallel  to  the  Polynesian  exaggeration  of  taboo.  From 
Polynesia,  too,  comes  the  practice  among  Fijian  chiefs,  of 
keeping  court  barbers,  who  by  reason  of  their  right  of  touching 
the  sacred  hair,  come  within  taboo,  so  that  others  have  to  feed 
them.     The  heralds  of  princes  are  inviolable  even  in  war. 


T3  ^ 

.-S 

O    (/I 

O    (U 


''  ["  For  the  real  noble  a  whole  private  dialect  is  set  apart.  The  common 
names  for  an  axe,  for  blood,  for  bamboo,  a  bamboo  knife,  a  pig,  food,  entrails,  and 
an  oven  are  taboo  in  his  presence." — Stevenson,  A  Footnote  to  History^ 


292  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

Many  obscure  practices  are  no  doubt  connected  with  the  chiefs  position  as  priests, 
Why  does  the  first  chief  in  Erromango  receive  a  stone  with  a  round  hole  in  it? 
Why  does  the  consecration  of  the  chief  in  Anaiteum  consist  in  being  drawn  round 
a  newly  felled  tree  with  his  crown  on  ? 

The  whole  existence  of  nobles  and  princes  on  this  earth  is  often  regarded  as 
something  only  transitory,  an  earthly  episode  in  the  lives  of  these  sons  of  the  gods. 
They  come  from  heaven,  and  destiny  holds  them  fast ;  they  return  only  as  souls 
to  Bolotu ;  the  threads  of  their  existence  are  attached  on  high.  What  wonder 
then  if  the  same  grade  of  holiness  was  ascribed  to  the  kings  as  to  gods,  and  to  the 
other  nobles  in  a  ratio  diminishing  according  to  their  rank  ?  The  king,  as  the  bearer 
of  taboo,  attains  an  altitude  which  is  dangerous  to  himself.  Originally,  he  could 
not  enter  any  house  belonging  to  a  subject;  since  otherwise  it  would  be  forfeited 
to  him.  In  Tahiti  he  had  himself  carried  over  land  which  he  was  too  sacred  to 
touch.  The  South  Sea  races  have,  however,  discovered  means  of  averting,  at  least 
in  some  measure,  the  evil  consequences  which  must  have  resulted  from  this  system. 

Of  all  those  around  the  king,  his  brothers  stand  nearest  to  him.  Occa- 
sionally, when  he  entrusts  a  commission  to  a  son,  he  gives  him  his  staff  and  whisk 
as  credentials  ;  otherwise,  the  king's  messenger  carries  a  green  bough.  A  prime 
minister,  who,  where  things  are  on  a  small  scale,  will  probably  be  the  commander- 
in-chief,  forms  a  necessary  supplement  to  the  sacred  sovereign.  This  post  is  also 
held  by  a  priest,  as  in  Hawaii.  There,  without  any  definite  intention  to  that  effect, 
royalty  assumed  a  character  with  two  aspects,  which  found  expression  also  in 
court  ceremonies.  Thus  it  occurred  that  even  when  European  political  ideas 
began  to  make  their  way  into  Hawaii,  the  constitutional  notion  of  a  leading  and 
responsible  minister  was  not  wholly  strange.  To  the  king's  suite  belong  also  the 
keepers  of  the  regalia.  In  Tahiti,  the  feather  girdle  and  fillet  are  guarded  by 
officials.  In  Nukahiva  the  chief  is  accompanied  by  his  fire-lighter.  Kamehameha 
compelled  the  chiefs  of  the  subject  islands  to  live  near  his  palace,  and  go  about 
with  him.  The  value  attached  to  genealogy  made  the  custodians  of  tradition 
an  important  element  of  the  court.  In  New  Zealand,  this  office  was  entrusted  to 
hump-backed  men,  in  order  that  if  both  chiefs,  father  and  son,  should  fall  together 
in  battle,  the  custody  of  the  legends  might  be  safe  in  the  hands  of  those  who 
were  compelled  to  stay  at  home. 

The  exuberant  development  of  trade  and  finance,  especially  in  East  Melanesia 
and  Micronesia,  was  all  the  more  closely  allied  with  politics,  from  the  fact  that  the 
king  used  to  have  a  monopoly  of  the  only  two  sources  of  wealth — the  manufacture 
of  coin  and  trade.  Here,  as  on  the  west  coast  of  Africa,  trade  enriched  the  chief, 
and  raised  him  to  a  far  higher  power  than  he  would  otherwise  have  acquired. 

Breaches  of  law  are  rare.  In  their  fundamental  character  they  were  formerly 
breaches  of  divine  ordinances.  For  this  reason,  the  penalties  are  extraordinarily 
severe,  and  ordeals  of  every  kind  play  the  chief  part  in  judicial  proceedings.  In 
later  times,  the  opposite  came  about ;  money  penalties  became  universal,  and 
formed  the  chief  sources  of  revenue  for  the  king  and  the  chiefs.  But  besides  this, 
an  offence  against  the  laws  involved  a  certain  dishonour ;  boys  and  old  men  were 
not  punished,  as  being  foolish  people.  New  laws  are  announced  to  the  people^;;: 
with  a  flourish  of  the  war  trumpet ;  a  prohibition  to  enter  upon  land,  or  to  pluck  * 
fruit,  is  signified  by  spears  stuck  in  the  ground,  or  bundles  of  leaves  tied  to 
branches.      For  private  injuries  in  the  Solomon  Islands,  every  man  exacts  the  best 


THE  FAMILY  AND    THE   STATE  IN  OCEANIA  293 

penalty  he  can  with  his  own  fist ;  but  if  the  relatives  intervene,  the  strife  is  in 
many  cases  appeased,  after  long  speeches  and  ferocious  gestures,  by  the  payment 
of  a  fine.  In  New  Caledonia,  an  adulteress  is  strangled  by  one  of  her  own  and 
one  of  her  husband's  relations.  Persons  convicted  of  magic  are  painted  black, 
adorned  with  flowers,  and  made  to  jump  into  the  sea. 

Intercourse  between  one  tribe  and  another  is  conducted  through  inviolable 
heralds,  old  women  for  choice.  These  also  act  as  trade  intermediaries  on 
'Change.  On  these  occasions  the  chief  gives  knotted  cords  of  rattan  and  reeds, 
— as  many  as  the  articles  included  in  the  commission,  while  the  length  of  the  reeds 
indicates  their  importance.  White  and  green,  in  streamers  or  boughs,  are  signs  of 
peace;  black  and  red,  in  colours  or  feathers,  signify  war  and  death.  In  New 
Guinea,  the  leaflets  of  a  coco-palm  leaf  are  partly  taken  off,  then  the  stem  is 
halved,  and  the  halves  handed  to  the  parties  in  token  of  peace.  Individual  tribes 
form  alliances  for  other  objects  ;  those  of  the  Fijians  are  very  expensive,  for  the 
allies  have  not  only  to  be  fed,  but  they  have  a  full  right  to  give  their  orders  as  lords 
throughout  the  territory  of  their  friends.  The  intercourse  of  daily  life  is  strictly 
formal  ;  in  Pelew,  the  word  mugul,  that  is,  "  bad  form,"  is  so  all-powerful,  that 
only  the  equivalent  for  taboo  can  dispute  supremacy  with  it.  As  with  the  Malays 
and  other  races,  it  is  mugul  to  ask  anybody  "  what  is  your  name  ?  "  though  a 
greeting  may  quite  well  take  the  form  "  who  are  you  ?  "  The  standing  question 
by  way  of  opening  a  conversation  is,,"  no  news?  "  or  "  give  your  news."  At  parting 
they  say  simply,  "  I'm  off."  In  general,  these  customs  are  very  like  those  of  the 
Polynesians,  and  in  former  times  perhaps  were  still  more  so.  Thus  the  ancient 
form  of  greeting  among  the  Pelew  Islanders,  of  rubbing  your  face  with  the  hand 
or  foot  of  the  person  to  be  greeted,  recurs  in  the  Hervey  Islands,  together  with  the 
Polynesian  rubbing  of  noses.  So  again  does  the  reception  of  friends,  with  words 
recited  sing-song  fashion  in  chorus.  In  all  circumstances,  custom  is  more  powerful 
than  morality.  It  is  optimism  to  take  for  morality  the  indignation  shown  by 
Micronesian  girls  at  trifling  violations  of  custom. 

The  number  of  weapons  in  use  is  difiicult  to  harmonise  with  the  gentle 
character  belonging  to  most  Polynesian  tribes.  Yet  the  predominance  of  militarism 
is  not  everywhere  merely  apparent.  The  Fijian  cannot  be  described  as  funda- 
mentally warlike  by  nature,  yet  the  entire  archipelago  is  seldom  free  from  war. 
It  lies  in  their  circumstances  and  usages,  and  is  the  simple  consequence  of  their 
numerous  independent  lordships.  A  phenomenon  no  more  unusual  than  the  cack- 
ling of  hens  by  night,  is  regarded  as  a  warlike  prognostic,  whereas  in  Europe  we 
at  least  allow  ourselves  the  time  which  elapses  between  one  comet  and  another.  In 
Polynesia  some  races  are  more  warlike  than  others  ;  the  Maoris  might  be  called 
the  Zulus  or  Apaches  of  Polynesia.  War,  as  a  necessity,  passes  like  a  red,  very 
red  thread,  through  the  whole  life  of  Marquesans,  Tahitians,  and  Gilbert  Islanders. 
The  military  renown  of  the  small  Paumotu  Islands  was  such  that  Tahitian  chiefs 
fetched  mercenaries  thence.  The  very  narrowness  of  the  space  contributed  to  de- 
velop such  conditions  ;  the  smaller  the  states  the  more  embittered  and  unconciH- 
atory  their  politics.  An  inexhaustible  source  of  hostilities  is  an  accusation  on  the 
part  of  one  family  group  that  another  has  done  despite  or  injury  to  their  dead ; 
breach  of  promise  of  marriage  is  another.  Therewith  naturally  the  general  pros- 
perity suffers,  not  only  that  of  natives  but  also  of  foreign  settlers,  so  that  it  has 
always   been   the  effort  of  the  missionaries  to  bring  about  a  union  of  the  different 


294  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

districts.  But  it  has  been  in  vain  ;  the  tendency  to  small  states  had  sealed  the  ruin 
of  Polynesia  long  before  the  people  had  thought  about  European  culture  and  the 
excess  of  it.  Herein  lies  one  of  the  impediments  which  has  compelled  the  roots 
of  Polynesian  culture  to  spread  laterally  instead  of  vertically  ;  we  need  only  think 
of  the  way  in  which  the  New  Zealanders  have  split  up. 

To  the  frequency  of  wars  conduced  also  the  standing  organisations  of  the 
military  character.  Kamehameha  I.  founded  a  special  army  the  name  of  which  was 
"eating  on  foot";  that  \s,  always  ready  for  battle.  In  the  Society  Islands  and 
elsewhere,  a  warrior  caste  existed  as  a  permanent  suite  to  the  chiefs.  In  every 
district  may  be  found  a  village  whose  inhabitants  possess  the  right  in  war  time  of 
opening  the  battle.  The  post  in  the  vanguard  is  highly  esteemed  as  a  post  of 
honour,  since  it  secures  a  special  authority  in  times  of  peace  and  a  conspicuous 
share  in  all  festive  enjoyments.  On  all  the  great  islands  there  are  specially  war- 
like tribes, — on  the  north  coast  of  New  Guinea  the  Mansuari,  in  Fiji  men  who 
adopt  a  celibate  life.  The  very  frequency  of  naval  wars  gives  rise  to  a  certain 
organisation,  since  the  guidance  of  the  war-canoes  can  only  be  entrusted  to  practised 
hands.  In  sea  encounters,  boats  which  belong  together  are  indicated  by  some 
common  sign- — a  bundle  of  palm  leaves,  a  strip  of  tapa,  or  a  picture  of  an  animal 
on  the  same  material.  In  just  the  same  way  people  fighting  on  land  wear  some 
sign  by  which  they  may  be  recognised,  and  these  are  changed  every  two  or  three 
days  in  order  to  avoid  ruses  on  the  part  of  the  enemy.  They  paint  particular 
figures  upon  their  bodies  in  black,  white,  or  red,  wear  a  shell  round  the  neck  or 
the  arm,  or  dress  their  hair  in  some  peculiar  way. 

But  in  their  opinion  every  war  has  sufficient  ground  ;  battle  is  to  them  the 
best  solution  of  a  mass  of  contested  questions,  and  their  final  arbiter  is  the  god  of 
war.  Violations  of  the  rights  of  property,  annexation  of  land,  fishing  and  hunting 
in  disputed  districts  lead  to  wars,  still  more  do  violations  of  taboo,  marriages 
between  persons  belonging  to  hostile  tribes,  murder,  adultery,  witchcraft,  and,  most 
frequently  of  all,  personal  insults  and  blood  feuds.  Whole  generations  labour  to 
wash  away  spots  on  the  honour  of  their  forefathers,  while  to  nourish  the  sentiment 
of  revenge  is  one  of  a  chiefs  first  duties.  The  Navigator's  Islands  testify  that  envy 
of  the  success  of  a  peacefully  working  tribe  may  contribute  its  fair  share  to  the 
kindling  of  ever  new  wars.  That  among  the  causes  of  war  women  have  their  place 
can  be  all  the  more  understood  from  the  fact  that  a  fundamental  rule  is  "  Once  a 
chief's  wife  always  his  wife."      Wars  of  succession  are  also  recorded. 

Lastly,  a  further  ground  of  quarrels  is  to  be  found  in  the  complicated  feudal 
relations.  Connected  with  this  is  the  fact  that  in  kingdoms  so  small  as  these  all 
personal  relations  are  thought  more  of  than  would  be  the  case  in  larger  states,  to 
which  further  importance  is  given  by  the  manner  in  which  social  ties  are 
indebted  for  their  vitality  to  the  half  monarchical,  half  oligocratic  constitution, 
so  that  the  dissolution  of  personal  relations  must  also,  as  observed  by  Semper, 
relax  the  political  relation  of  states  to  each  other.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  these 
people  neither  to  break  wholly  with  each  other  nor  to  unite  with  each  other 
frankly.  What  prevails  is  neither  open  war  nor  undoubted  peace  ;  small  causes  are 
sufficient  to  evoke  a  tendency  in  one  or  the  other  direction. 

In  Polynesia  war  is  conducted  with  formalities  no  less  strict  than  those  which 
govern  peaceful  intercourse,  and  within  their  limits  it  often  proceeds  in  a  fairly 
harmless  manner.      As  a  chronic  evil  it  became  converted  into  a  settled  institution. 


Printed  hy  Hie  Bibliographisthes  Iniflttul,  Leipzig. 

AN  AUSTRALIAN  FAMILY-PARTY  FROM   NEW    SOUTH  WALES. 


THE  FAMILY  AND    THE   STATE  IN  OCEANIA  295 

Head-stealing  is  partly  the  object,  partly  the  symbol  of  warfare.  It  can  never 
degenerate  into  aimless  murder  ;  and  it  is  rarely  that  more  than  one  man  is  killed. 
Both  sides  know  quite  well  what  is  taking  place,  and  cunning  on  one  side  is  met 
by  precaution  and  indefatigable  vigilance  on  the  other.  This  kind  of  warfare  is 
recognised  by  the  Micronesians  as  a  chief  institution  of  their  political  life,  for  the 
further  reason  that  it  is  essential  to  the  provision  of  means  for  meeting  state- 
expenditure.  The  head  chief  pays  with  his  own  money.  He  has  considerable 
outgoings  at  his  accession,  and  must  defray  those  of  all  the  muis,  ruks,  and  other 
festivities.  But  the  country  pays  no  taxes,  and  the  expenses  must  be  met  somehow. 
That  is  the  use  of  the  war-dance.  The  head  chief  travels  through  friendly  districts 
with  a  head  which  his  warriors  have  secured,  executes  the  war-dance,  and  receives 
for  the  performance  a  fee  proportionate  to  the  size  of  the  country.  But,  in  order 
to  prevent  too  great  a  drain  of  money  in  any  one  direction,  the  rule  is  that  when 
one  village  has  finished  with  the  head,  another  has  a  turn  with  it.  Thus,  though 
by  a  somewhat  unusual  method,  the  very  usual  object  of  keeping  money  in  circula- 
tion is  attained.  Head-hunting  is  common  in  New  Guinea,  as,  for  example, 
among  the  Tugeris,  who  cut  off  the  head  with  a  bamboo  knife  ;  and  so  too  in  the 
Malay  Archipelago.  Among  the  Motus  he  only  who  has  killed  a  man  may  wear 
the  half-skull  of  a  horn-bill  in  his  hair.  A  woman  will  do  ;  and  there  is  no 
objection  to  the  employment  of  treachery. 

Unluckily,  where  things  are  on  a  smaller  scale,  as  in  the  Marshalls,  war 
degenerates  into  an  incessant  devastation  of  fields  and  plantations.  It  is  therefore 
easy  to  understand  why  bullet-proof  houses  of  stone  are  supplanting  huts  of  wood 
and  straw.  There  is  nothing  about  which  the  gods  are  so  keen  as  war  :  nor  is 
anything  an  occasion  of  larger  sacrifices.  Before  coming  to  blows  with  men, 
it  is  necessary  to  come  to  an  understanding  with  the  gods.  Temples  half  buried 
in  weeds  are  tidied  up  or  rebuilt.  The  greater  the  sacrifice,  the  firmer  is  the 
confidence.  Among  the  Maoris  the  priests  had  to  decide  whether  or  not  the  war 
will  be  victorious.  Sticks  were  stuck  in  the  earth,  and  if  they  remained  upright  it 
denoted  a  loss,  and  the  war  was  deferred.  In  other  cases  food  was  cooked  for  the 
gods  and  the  fighting-men  ;  then  the  troops  started,  followed  by  slaves  and 
women,  who  had  to  attend  to  transport  and  commissariat.  All  warriors  were 
"  taboo."  The  command  was  allotted  to  the  boldest  fighter,  who  was  also  expected 
to  be  adept  in  the  kind  of  eloquence  calculated  to  rouse  the  courage  of  the  warriors 
immediately  before  the  fight,  He  would  spring  forward  in  the  front  of  the  line, 
and  with  glowing  words  extol  the  greatness  and  the  fame  of  the  tribe,  the  favour 
of  the  gods,  the  valour  of  their  forefathers  ;  but  while  enumerating  the  injuries 
which  had  yet  to  be  avenged,  he  would  avoid  bringing  into  prominence  the 
dangers  of  the  moment.  The  excitement  rose  to  the  point  of  fury.  The  warriors, 
kindled  by  the  discourse,  would  fling  off  their  mats,  smear  their  bodies  with 
charcoal  and  the  sacred  red-ochre,  adorn  their  hair  with  feathers,  and  dash  into 
the  war-dance.  In  this  they  would  expend  a  good  deal  of  bodily  strength,  with 
the  view  of  kindling  the  passion  of  battle  in  their  hearts  ;  they  crouched  down  in 
rows  one  behind  another,  leapt  up  suddenly  at  the  word  of  command,  jumped  on 
one  leg  to  one  side,  then  on  the  other  leg  to  the  other  side,  with  their  meres  raised 
aloft,  and  then  leaping  off  both  feet  into  the  air,  brandish  their  weapons,  shouting 
their  songs  in  quick  time.  Old  women,  smeared  with  ochre,  danced  in  front  of 
the  lines.     Then  the  most  renowned  warriors  advanced,  and  challenged  the  foe 


296  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


with  opprobrious  language,  such  as  Pritchard  heard  in  Samoa.  "  You  banana- 
eaters  of  Manono,  let  Moso  twist  your  necks  !  " — "  You  coco-nut  eaters  of  Aana, 
may  your  tongues  be  torn  out  and  burnt." — "  Here  is  my  club,  to  knock  down 
those  Savaii  pigs.  Where  is  the  Savaii  pig  who  wants  to  be  killed  ?  " — "  Fry  that 
Atua-king,  who  shall  die  by  my  spear ! " — "  Here  is  the  man-eating  gun  ! " — 
"  Where  are  they,  that  dirty  herd  who  pretend  to  be  men  ?  "  Finally  the  two 
sides  would  dash  furiously  upon  each  other,  and  a  series  of  single  combats  would 
ensue.  The  event  would  be  decided  by  the  fall  or  the  victory  of  sottie  one  great 
warrior  and  the  consequent  retreat  or  advance  of  his  side.  It  was  seldom  possible 
to  rally  the  fugitives  ;  his  back  once  turned,  every  man  ran  for  his  life.  The 
victors  returned  from  the  pursuit  to  the  field  of  battle,  and  marked  with  their 
spears  the  spots  where  warriors  had  fallen.  The  Maoris  used  to  examine  especi- 
ally if  they  had  had  their  fists  clenched  ;  if  so,  they  had  fallen  in  the  moment  of 
victory.      Their  own    wounded  they  carried  away.      Then  they  placed  one  of  the 


Sacrificial  litiife,  available  also  as  an  instrument  of  torture,  from  Easter  Island — one-half  real  size. 

(Berlin  Museum. )  ' 

enemy's  dead  aside  as  an  offering  to  the  gods,  and  laid  the  heads  of  the  others  at  the 
chief's  feet.     The  wounded  were  tortured  and  clubbed  to  death. 

Gunpowder  has  changed  the  style  of  fighting.  The  islanders,  with  their  dislike 
of  danger  and  preference  for  attacking  only  when  they  have  a  manifest  advantage, 
took  very  readily  to  fighting  at  a  distance  and  promiscuous  shooting  from  ambushes 
all  day  long.  The  art  of  taking  cover  developed  more  rapidly  than  that  of  attack- 
ing. In  Fiji  they  fought  around  fortresses  made  of  wooden  palisades  :  the  women 
and  children  having  been  removed,  before  the  siege  began,  to  a  place  of  safety. 
Spears  were  thrown  and  stones  slung  from  side  to  side,  even  red  hot  stones  to  set 
fire  to  the  woodwork,  but  the  besieging  party  seldom  arrived  at  assaults  in  the 
open.  Treachery,  stratagem,  hunger,  intimidation,  were  the  principal  means  to 
which  they  resorted.  Clever  utilisation  of  natural  advantages  in  the  ground, 
palisades,  ramparts  faced  with  stone  and  loop-holed,  and,  in  the  case  of  fortified 
villages  or  pahs  in  the  plain,  muddy  ditches  as  well,  added  strength  to  the  defence. 
The  chief  entrance  was  flanked  by  walls  in  the  form  of  bastions  and  the  gate 
formed  of  sliding  timbers.  For  naked  aborigines  a  thorn  hedge  makes  an  almost 
impenetrable  rampart.  Within  the  fortress  a  sentry  was  posted  in  an  elevated 
position  ;  the  sign  of  danger  or  of  a  threatening  attack  was  given  by  drums. 
When  the  wind  was  favourable  they  challenged  the  enemy  by  flying  banners  and 
dragon-like  things  of  many  colours  in  his  direction,  but  a  war  of  this  kind  often 
ends  without  bloodshed.      Traces  of  an  international  law,  which  has  in  view  the 


THE  FAMILY  AND    THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA  297 

mitigation  of  even  this  kind  of  war,  may  be  recognised  in  the  fact  tliat  so  long  as 
their  patience  holds  out  both  sides  spare  the  adversaries'  fruit  trees.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  find  no  trace  of  any  idea  that  it  is  more  honourable  to  win  in  open  fight 
than  by  means  of  cunning  and  ruse,  and  accordingly^  there  are  no  limits  to  the 
artifices  which  may  be  employed  in  war.  The  rage  of  the  victors  often  spares 
neither  women  nor  children,  and  in  this  respect  the  greatest  atrocities  have  been 
committed.  Even  Fiji  has  its  legend  of  the  chief's  leap, — a  fugitive  chief  is  said 
to  have  thrown  himself  in  desperation  from  a  rock  in  the  island  of  Wakaia. 

The  objection  of  the  Polynesians  to  action  in  the  open  is  marked  also  in  the 
little  use  which  they  make  of  their  boats  in  actual  sea  fighting.  The  famous  war 
canoes  served  mainly  for  transporting  the  warriors,  and  aquatic  engagements 
only  took  place  when  hostile  war-canoes  met  accidentally.  The  method  was  to 
upset  the  opponents'  canoe,  which  rendered  it  easy  to  club  to  death  the 
helpless  swimming  crew. 

As  soon  as  the  lust  of  battle  is  appeased  on  either 
side,  and  the  accurately  kept  debit  and  credit  account 
shows  that  winnings  and  losses  are  balanced,  the  armies 
take  steps  towards  peace.  The  intelligence  that  peace 
is  desired  is  conveyed  by  neutrals,  and  either  side  sends 
as  herald  some  old  man  related  to  both  and  gifted 
with  eloquence.  The  periods  of  hostilities  are  con- 
cluded by  carouses,  though  deep  down  in  all  hearts 
a  secret  wish  of  beginning  again  at  a  seasonable  moment 
is  still  active.  Treaties  of  peace  are  in  reality  only 
armistices.  The  Samoan  system,  known  as  malo,  which 
went  so  far  as  to  slay  thevanquished  when  he  approached    Human  lower  jaw  set  as  an  arm- 

..,        .  r         i_      •      •  i  cr    \--  T  J  ring,  from  New  Guinea.      (Christy 

With  Signs  of  submission,  to    carry  off    his   wite  and       collection.) 

children,  and   ravage   his    fields    and    houses,    or    else 

to  a  gradual  ruining  of  him  by  extortion,  not  unfrequently  compelled  the  flames 

of  revolt  to  break  out  afresh.      Whole  tribes  have  been  known  to  migrate  in  order 

to  escape  oppression  of  this  kind.      In  1 848   the  whole  population  of  Western 

Upolu  removed  to  the  eastern  part  of  the  island. 

Many  features  in  the  existence  of  the  Oceanians  can  only  be  understood 
when  we  realize  the  small  value  attached  to  human  life.  This  hangs  together 
with  the  over-population  of  island  areas,  and  has  contributed  powerfully  to  the 
formation  of  colonies,  but  it  leads  also  to  depopulation,  and  throws  a  sanguinary 
gleam  over  all  their  social  life.  Human  sacrifices  were  universal  in  Polynesia 
before  the  time  of  Europeans,  and  cannibalism  was  extensively  practised.  Both 
are  closely  bound  up  with  religion  and  war,  while  human  sacrifice  is  intimately 
connected  with  the  festivals  of  the  dead.  In  certain  sacred  functions  the  priest 
required  it.  Thus  men  or  portions  of  men — for  example  eyes,  which  were  regarded 
as  pleasing  to  the  gods — were  buried  in  the  foundations  of  temples  ;  while  at  the 
building  of  war-canoes  human  sacrifices  were  absolutely  necessary.  The  gods  to 
whom  men  were  sacrificed  were  various,  but  the  principal  were  Tangaroa  and 
Oro  ;  the  killing  was  done  in  Oro's  temple,  and  the  victim  deposited  in  Tanga- 
roa's.  As  everywhere,  the  largest  number  of  human  victims  was  furnished  by 
prisoners  of  war  and  slaves.  The  selection  of  the  victim  depended  in  some  places 
upon  the  priests,  who,  after  some  time  passed  in  the  temple,  came  to  the  people 


296  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

with  opprobrious  language,  such  as  Pritchard  heard  in  Samoa.  "  You  banana- 
eaters  of  Manono,  let  Moso  twist  your  necks  !  " — "  You  coco-nut  eaters  of  Aana, 
may  your  tongues  be  torn  out  and  burnt." — "  Here  is  my  club,  to  knock  down 
those  Savaii  pigs.  Where  is  the  Savaii  pig  who  wants  to  be  killed  ?  " — •'  Fry  that 
Atua-king,  who  shall  die  by  my  spear ! " — "  Here  is  the  man-eating  gun  ! " — 
"  Where  are  they,  that  dirty  herd  who  pretend  to  be  men  ?  "  Finally  the  two 
sides  would  dash  furiously  upon  each  other,  and  a  series  of  single  combats  would 
ensue.  The  event  would  be  decided  by  the  fall  or  the  victory  of  sotne  one  great 
warrior  and  the  consequent  retreat  or  advance  of  his  side.  It  was  seldom  possible 
to  rally  the  fugitives  ;  his  back  once  turned,  every  man  ran  for  his  life.  The 
victors  returned  from  the  pursuit  to  the  field  of  battle,  and  marked  with  their 
spears  the  spots  where  warriors  had  fallen.  The  Maoris  used  to  examine  especi- 
ally if  they  had  had  their  fists  clenched  ;  if  so,  they  had  fallen  in  the  moment  of 
victory.     Their  own    wounded  they  carried  away.     Then  they  placed  one  of  the 


Sacrificial  knife,  available  also  as  an  instrument  of  torture,  from  Easter  Island— one-half  real  size. 

(Berlin  IVtuseum. )  ' 

enemy's  dead  aside  as  an  offering  to  the  gods,  and  laid  the  heads  of  the  others  at  the 
chief's  feet.     The  wounded  were  tortured  and  clubbed  to  death. 

Gunpowder  has  changed  the  style  of  fighting.  The  islanders,  with  their  dislike 
of  danger  and  preference  for  attacking  only  when  they  have  a  manifest  advantage, 
took  very  readily  to  fighting  at  a  distance  and  promiscuous  shooting  from  ambushes 
all  day  long.  The  art  of  taking  cover  developed  more  rapidly  than  that  of  attack- 
ing. In  Fiji  they  fought  around  fortresses  made  of  wooden  palisades  :  the  women 
and  children  having  been  removed,  before  the  siege  began,  to  a  place  of  safety. 
Spears  were  thrown  and  stones  slung  from  side  to  side,  even  red  hot  stones  to  set 
fire  to  the  woodwork,  but  the  besieging  party  seldom  arrived  at  assaults  in  the 
open.  Treachery,  stratagem,  hunger,  intimidation,  were  the  principal  means  to 
which  they  resorted.  Clever  utilisation  of  natural  advantages  in  the  ground, 
palisades,  ramparts  faced  with  stone  and  loop-holed,  and,  in  the  case  of  fortified 
villages  or  pahs  in  the  plain,  muddy  ditches  as  well,  added  strength  to  the  defence. 
The  chief  entrance  was  flanked  by  walls  in  the  form  of  bastions  and  the  gate 
formed  of  sliding  timbers.  For  naked  aborigines  a  thorn  hedge  makes  an  almost 
impenetrable  rampart.  Within  the  fortress  a  sentry  was  posted  in  an  elevated 
position  ;  the  sign  of  danger  or  of  a  threatening  attack  was  given  by  drums. 
When  the  wind  was  favourable  they  challenged  the  enemy  by  flying  banners  and 
dragon-like  things  of  many  colours  in  his  direction,  but  a  war  of  this  kind  often 
ends  without  bloodshed.      Traces  of  an  international  law,  which  has  in  view  the 


THE  FAMILY  AND    THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA  297 

mitigation  of  even  this  kind  of  war,  may  be  recognised  in  the  fact  that  so  long  as 
their  patience  holds  out  both  sides  spare  the  adversaries'  fruit  trees.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  find  no  trace  of  any  idea  that  it  is  more  honourable  to  win  in  open  fight 
than  by  means  of  cunning  and  ruse,  and  accordingly  there  are  no  limits  to  the 
artifices  which  may  be  employed  in  war.  The  rage  of  the  victors  often  spares 
neither  women  nor  children,  and  in  this  respect  the  greatest  atrocities  have  been 
committed.  Even  Fiji  has  its  legend  of  the  chief's  leap, — a  fugitive  chief  is  said 
to  have  thrown  himself  in  desperation  from  a  rock  in  the  island  of  Wakaia. 

The  objection  of  the  Polynesians  to  action  in  the  open  is  marked  also  in  the 
little  use  which  they  make  of  their  boats  in  actual  sea  fighting.  The  famous  war 
canoes  served  mainly  for  transporting  the  warriors,  and  aquatic  engagements 
only  took  place  when  hostile  war-canoes  met  accidentally.  The  method  was  to 
upset  the  opponents'  canoe,  which  rendered  it  easy  to  club  to  death  the 
helpless  swimming  crew. 

As  soon  as  the  lust  of  battle  is  appeased  on  either 
side,  and  the  accurately  kept  debit  and  credit  account 
shows  that  winnings  and  losses  are  balanced,  the  armies 
take  steps  towards  peace.  The  intelligence  that  peace 
is  desired  is  conveyed  by  neutrals,  and  either  side  sends 
as  herald  some  old  man  related  to  both  and  gifted 
with  eloquence.  The  periods  of  hostilities  are  con- 
cluded by  carouses,  though  deep  down  in  all  hearts 
a  secret  wish  of  beginning  again  at  a  seasonable  moment 
is  still  active.  Treaties  of  peace  are  in  reality  only 
armistices.  The  Samoan  system,  known  as  malo,  which 
went  so  far  as  to  slay  the  vanquished  when  he  approached    Human  lower  jaw  set  as  an  arm- 

■  ,1.       ■  c         ■\^      •      •  i.  cc    X.-  T  J  ring,  from  New  Guinea.      (Christy 

With  signs  of    submission,  to    carry  oft    his   wife  and       collection  ) 

children,   and    ravage    his    fields    and    houses,    or    else 

to  a  gradual  ruining  of  him  by  extortion,  not  unfrequently  compelled  the  flames 

of  revolt  to  break  out  afresh.      Whole  tribes  have  been  known  to  migrate  in  order 

to  escape  oppression  of  this  kind.      In  1848   the  whole  population  of  Western 

Upolu  removed  to  the  eastern  part  of  the  island. 

Many  features  in  the  existence  of  the  Oceanians  can  only  be  understood 
when  we  realize  the  small  value  attached  to  human  life.  This  hangs  together 
with  the  over-population  of  island  areas,  and  has  contributed  powerfully  to  the 
formation  of  colonies,  but  it  leads  also  to  depopulation,  and  throws  a  sanguinary 
gleam  over  all  their  social  life.  Human  sacrifices  were  universal  in  Polynesia 
before  the  time  of  Europeans,  and  cannibalism  was  extensively  practised.  Both 
are  closely  bound  up  with  religion  and  war,  while  human  sacrifice  is  intimately 
connected  with  the  festivals  of  the  dead.  In  certain  sacred  functions  the  priest 
required  it.  Thus  men  or  portions  of  men — for  example  eyes,  which  were  regarded 
as  pleasing  to  the  gods — were  buried  in  the  foundations  of  temples  ;  while  at  the 
building  of  war-canoes  human  sacrifices  were  absolutely  necessary.  The  gods  to 
whom  men  were  sacrificed  were  various,  but  the  principal  were  Tangaroa  and 
Oro  ;  the  killing  was  done  in  Oi'o's  temple,  and  the  victim  deposited  in  Tanga- 
roa's.  As  everywhere,  the  largest  number  of  human  victims  was  furnished  by 
prisoners  of  war  and  slaves.  The  selection  of  the  victim  depended  in  some  places 
upon  the  priests,  who,  after  some  time  passed  in  the  temple,  came  to  the  people 


298  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

and  indicated  the  victim  whom  the  deity  desired.  The  Maoris  used  after  a 
battle  to  collect  the  bodies  of  the  foe,  cut  off  scalp  and  right  ear  for  the  gods, 
and  dig  two  rows  of  cooking  pits,  in  one  of  which  the  cooking  was  done  for  the 
gods  only.  When  the  meal  was  dressed  the  chief  first  swallowed  the  brain  and 
eyes  of  one  of  the  fallen,  raw ;  then  followed  his  sons  or  nearest  relatives,  and 
after  them  the  whole  company  fell  to  upon  the  hideous  meal.  On  these  occasions 
gluttony  was  the  rule.  What  remained  over  was  packed  in  hampers  and  sent  to 
neighbouring  tribes  who,  by  the  fact  of  accepting  and  consuming  the  present, 
declared  themselves  friends  of  the  victors. 

Returning  home,  the  troop  bore  the  heads  of  its  slain  chiefs  as  sacred  relics, 
while  those  of  the  enemy  were  fixed  on  spears.  For  every  chief  who  had  fallen 
the  life  of  one  of  his  slaves  was  required,  while  the  heads  of  the  enemy  were 
stuck  on  the  palisades  surrounding  the  village,  and  derided.  Then  followed  the 
ceremony  of  taking  off  the  taboo  from  the  victorious  force.  Scalp  locks  were 
fastened  to  reeds,  and  with  these  the  warriors  executed  a  dance  to  the  chanting 
of  the  priest.  The  business  was  concluded  by  the  tedious  task  of  mummifying 
the  chiefs'  heads.  These  were  boiled,  smoked,  and  dried  in  the  air  ;  brain,  tongue, 
and  eyes  were  removed,  tattooing  and  hair  preserved.  The  very  form  of  the 
lineaments  was  often  still  recognisable.  Some  tribes  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
East  Cape  are  said  to  have  mummified  even  entire  bodies.  Others  fixed  eyes  of 
bright  stones  in  the  skulls  ;  and  in  New  Britain  these  were  on  great  occasions 
worn  as  masks  by  the  younger  men,  that  they  might  acquire  the  spirit  of  their 
former  owners.  Among  the  Maoris  cannibalism  was  undoubtedly  always  con- 
nected with  revenge,  and  their  wars  were  always  wars  of  revenge.  This  trait 
deserves  to  be  remarked  as  distinguishing  their  cannibalism  from  that  which  has 
assumed  either  a  more  everyday  character,  or  one  distinctively  religious. 

When  we  find  the  traditions  unanimously  affirming  that  cannibalism  was  not 
practised  among  the  earlier  generations  of  immigrants,  we  may  no  doubt  imagine 
it  to  be  one  of  those  phenomena  which  correspond  with  a  certain  retrogression  in 
the  public  life  of  the  community,  brought  about  by  internal  quarrels  ;  but  further, 
that  it  came  in  with  the  increase  of  the  population,  which  in  many  islands  led 
undoubtedly  to  overcrowding.  It  disappeared  and  came  up  again,  showing  that 
there  was  always  a  favourable  soil  for  it  somewhere.  We  are  led  to  the  same 
conclusion  by  considering  its  geographical  distribution.  Well-ascertained  centres 
of  undisguised  cannibalism  are  noticed  in  places  so  far  apart  as  New  Zealand,  the 
Marquesas,  the  Palliser  Islands,  and  the  Paumotus.  The  Hawaiian  and  Tahitian 
groups,  the  Society  Islands,  and,  for  a  period,  Tonga,  were  free  from  it  during 
the  time  of  the  more  frequent  visits  of  Europeans  towards  the  end  of  the  last 
century.  But  throughout  Polynesia  there  exist  both  objects  and  legends  in  which 
traces  survive  of  a  time  when  it  extended  more  widely.  When  we  find  that  in 
the  Marquesas  cannibal  feasts  were  preceded  by  the  cutting  off  of  the  victim's 
hair,  to  make  arm -rings  and  necklets  of  magical  potency,  we  cannot  fail 
to  see  a  cannibal  significance  in  the  frequent  use  of  human  hair  to  adorn 
spears  and  helmets,  or  of  human  bones  and  skulls  as  drinking -vessels ;  or 
in  the  Hawaiian  custom  of  putting  the  eye  of  a  human  victim  in  the  oil 
used  to  anoint  the  king.  Strong  men's  bones  are  available  as  talismans.  In 
New  Zealand,  fish-hooks  were,  according  to  Forster,  furnished  with  a  jagged  bit 
of  human   bone.       The    people   also    had    necklaces    of   human    teeth ;    and    in 


THE  FAMILY  AND   THE  STATE  IN  OCEANIA  299 

Hawaii  a  bone  hung  round  the  neck  by  a  string  of  human  hair  counted  as  a  high 
distinction. 

The  notion  of  the  gods  eating  souls  runs  all  through  Polynesian  mythology. 
In  Aitulaki  a  god  was  called  Terongo,  the  man-eater.  Tangaroa  caught  souls 
with  a  net  or  a  noose  and  ate  them  up.  Souls  of  people  who  died  suddenly  were 
devoured  by  the  god.  This  conception  might  easily  pass  into  that  of  eating  the 
body  with  the  soul ;  and  therewith  human  sacrifices,  and,  in  the  uncertainty  of 
the  boundary  between  divine  and  human,  cannibalism  received  a  divine  justification. 

Among  most  Melanesian  tribes  cannibalism  is  a  settled  institution,  often  in 
a  very  extensive  degree.  In  many  places  it  has,  for  various  reasons,  disappeared, 
as  in  Teste  between  the  visits  of  Moresby  in  1872  and  Finsch  in  1885.  Else- 
where human  flesh  is  in  such  request  that  even  the  remains  of  a  relative  who  has 
died  a  natural  death  will  serve  for  a  repast.  We  find  also  examples  of  a  recent 
extension  of  the  bad  habit  by  a  sort  of  infection.  Thus  Saa  caught  it  from  San 
Christoval,  Florida  from  somewhere  to  the  westward,  perhaps  Savo.  The  Torres 
Islanders  bake  the  heads  which  they  have  captured,  and  eat  the  eyes  and  pieces 
from  the  cheeks.  The  Fijians  used  long  wooden  forks,  to  eat  not  only  prisoners 
of  war,  but  members  of  certain  particular  tribes  who  were  condemned  to  deliver 
one  of  their  number  for  a  cannibal  feast.  In  the  Solomons  prisoners  were  even 
sold  for  cannibal  purposes.  Brown  the  missionary  was  told  in  New  Britain  that 
they  retained  the  custom  with  the  view  of  intimidating  their  enemies.  When  we 
find  a  human  skull  with  the  back  smashed  in,  the  brains  having  been  swallowed 
through  the  opening,  we  may  safely  infer  cannibalism  ;  and  such  are  found  in 
quantities  on  D'Entrecasteaux.  Cannibalism  often  merely  expresses  hatred  and 
rage  against  a  slain  enemy,  just  as  when  a  captured  foe  is  burnt  alive.  A  craving 
for  flesh  meat  can  seldom  be  assigned  as  a  cause ;  most  readily  perhaps  among 
the  indigent  natives  of  New  Caledonia.  Yet  even  these  go  back  to  mythology  and 
declare  that  men  are  fishes  and  therefore  eatable.  Human  sacrifices,  with  subse- 
quent consumption  of  the  corpse  or  portions  of  it,  form  in  Oceania  also  a  main- 
stay of  cannibalism.  One  receives  the  impression  that  life  in  those  parts  is 
always  passed  under  the  foreboding  of  being  sacrificed.  Cannibalism  has  also 
been  maintained  where  it  would  otherwise  have  disappeared,  owing  to  its  associa- 
tion with  skull  worship.  The  Hattams,  among  whom  it  is  a  custom  to  decorate 
their  dwelling-houses  with  the  heads  of  dead  persons,  desecrate  the  graves  of  their 
neighbours  in  a  shameful  way,  and  at  every  feast  in  honour  of  a  newly-captured 
head  cannibalism  blazes  up  afresh. 

Infanticide  was  a  recognised  institution  in  Polynesia  in  pre-Christian  times. 
The  language  has  formed  special  terms  for  burying  alive,  stabbing  with  a  splinter 
of  bamboo,  and  strangling.  In  Tahiti  some  mothers  had  killed  ten  children  ;  the 
only  gleam  of  light  in  the  blackness  of  this  crime  was  the  strict  adherence  to  the 
law  that  a  child  had  escaped  death  if  it  had  lived  for  even  a  short  interval  of  time. 
Fortunately  there  were  cases  enough  where  natural  maternal  feeling  got  the  better 
of  convention.  Williams  the  missionary  asserts  that  every  time  a  mother 
murdered  a  child  sprung  from  a  misalliance,  she  advanced  a  step  in  rank,  until 
she  at  length  reached  a  point,  corresponding  to  the  number  of  her  infanticides,  at 
which  she  was  permitted  to  let  her  children  live  in  future.  In  not  a  few  districts 
of  this  favoured  region  necessity  was  the  motive  for  infanticide,  but  indolence 
still  more  so.     The  natives  in  justifying  the  practice  frequently  approximated  to 


300  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

Malthusian  principles.  The  dislike  of  bringing  up  more  girls  than  necessary  was 
an  equally  prevailing  cause.  War,  the  priesthood,  fishery,  and  sailing,  were 
regarded  as  forms  of  activity  to  which  it  paid  t5  bring  up  boys,  and  thus  the 
disproportion  of  the  sexes  was  so  great  that  one  woman  was  often  wife  to  four 
or  five  men. 


§  9.  RELIGION   IN  OCEANIA 

Universal  animallon ;  the  conception  oiAtiia,  Mana,  Ani,  Kalit,  and  the  like — Creation  of  gods — Hero-worship 
— Atua,  Oromattca — Gods  of  the  sea,  the  air,  the  land,  daily  occupations — Animation  of  beasts,  plants,  and 
stones — Cosmogany  and  mythology  ;  views  of  Nature — Beginnings  of  metaphysics — Legend  of  Papa  and 
Kaka — Separation  of  Heaven  and  Earth — Rangi-  Ru  and  Maui — Maui  as  deity  and  animating  principle  of 
earthquake,  fire,  and  sun — Hawaiian  and  Maori  Mauis — Wakea — Tangaroa  the  Polynesian  Zeus,  god  of 
the  sun,  the  firmament,  the  horizon — Tii  as  a  variation  of  time — Tane,  god  of  the  sky — Hina,  goddess  of 
the  moon — Gods  of  Olympus  and  Hades,  Hikuleo,  Milu,  Pele — Hero-gods  :  Meru,  Moso,  Oru,  Maru— 
Priests ;  universality  of  the  office — Priests  and  chiefs — Priest -kings — Consecration  of  priests — The  priests' 
functions — Temples  and  places  of  sacrifice  ;  various  kinds  of  sacred  places — Graves  as  places  of  veneration — 
Temples — Lack  of  genuine  idols — Embodiments  of  gods — The  7>V-^Stone  images — Feather-idols — Graves 
and  funeral  customs  ;  stay  of  the  soul  near  the  body  and  about  the  grave — Various  forms  of  interment — 
Skull-worship — Sacrifices  to  the  dead — Burying  alive. 

Universal  animation,  or  the  endowment  of  all  things  with  a  soul,  is  the  broad 
foundation  of  all  religion  among  Polynesians  and  Melanesians  alike  ;  everything, 
even  to  the  utensils,  had  a  soul  or  was  capable  of  having  one.  We  must  not, 
however,  conceive  this  animation  as  exclusively  of  an  ennobling  kind.  The  words 
spirit  and  soul  indicate  generally  any  expression  of  life.  The  squeaking  of  rats, 
the  talk  of  children  in  their  sleep,  is  called  "spirit"  in  Tahiti.  But  by  the  system 
of  embodying  tutelary  spirits,  souls  are  consciously  imported  into  objects,  and 
accordingly,  just  as  a  future  life  in  Bolotu  is  assigned  to  the  souls  of  men,  beasts, 
plants,  and  stones,  so  it  is  also  to  the  implements  of  every  kind  of  handicraft. 
Thus  this  system  led  to  the  primitive  pantheism  which  found  its  most  characteristic 
stamp  in  the  conception  universal  in  Oceania  of  the  Atua,  Akua,  or  Hotua. 

Atua  in  Polynesia  indicates  the  spiritual  in  the  widest  sense,  tua  apparently 
standing  here  in  the  sense  of  the  other  world  :  it  is  God,  deified  man,  spirit,  soul, 
shadow,  ghost.  The  v/ord  is  consciously  used  in  a  generic  sense  just  as  mana  is 
in  Melanesia.  Codrington  says  it  is  a  power  or  influence  which  is  in  a  certain 
sense  supernatural,  but  expresses  itself  in  any  kind  of  force  or  superiority  which 
man  may  possess.  It  has  no  fixed  connection  with  anything,  and  can  be  trans- 
ferred to  almost  everything.  But  spirits,  whether  disembodied  souls  or  supra- 
mundane  beings,  possess  it  and  can  impart  it.  All  the  religious  rites  of  the 
Melanesians  consist  in  obtaining  mana,  or  deriving  benefit  from  it.  The  other 
world  can  become  practically  effective  for  the  living,  either  through  the  mediation  of 
departed  souls  which  wander  between  heaven  and  earth,  or  by  the  entry,  whether 
temporary  or  permanent,  of  a  god  into  an  earthly  object.  In  this  way  the  tutelary 
spirits  who  are  extraordinarily  important  in  the  practical  service  of  the  gods,  came 
into  existence.  Their  inspiration  is  desired  because  they  bring  to  knowledge  that 
which  they  have  acquired  in  their  intercourse  with  the  gods  of  Bolotu.  If  they 
do  not  come  willingly  it  is  sought  to  constrain  them  by  prayers  and  sacrifices,  and 
in  the  last  resort,  by  the  incantations  of  delirious  ecstasy.  The  Polynesian  atua 
recurs   in  the  Ani  or  Han  of  Ponap^,  the  Kasingl  and   Kalit  of  the  Pelew,  the 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA 


301 


Anut  of  Kusaie,  and  the  Yaris  of  Tobi.  This  spirit  worship  which  is  directed 
towards  creatures  regarded  as  animated,  appears  in  many  places  to  have  de- 
generated into  pure  beast  worship.  Thus  in  the  Mortlocks  the  bastard  mackerel 
{caranx)  is  reverenced  as  the  god  of  war,  and  the  Kurnai  see  in  the  Australian  warbler 
and  the  azurine  the  creators  of  the  sexes.  That  the  animating  element  is  also  under- 
stood by  Kalit  appears  from  the  fact  that  a  Kalit  is  assigned  to  dead  objects  ; 
Semper  was  asked  by  the  Pelew  Islanders  about  the  Kalit  that  ticked  in  his  watch. 

The  Vui  of  the  New  Hebrides  dwell  in  a  region  called  Panoi.  They  stand 
in  relation  with  deified  ancestors,  and  are  invoked  in  case  of  danger.  All  serious 
illnesses,  on  the  other  hand,  are  attributed  to  magic,  or  the  evil  influence  of  the 
Atai  or  Tatnate,  who  are  the  souls  of  the  dead,  and  as  such  very  distinct  from  the 
Vui.  No  sooner  has  the  soul  left  the  body  than  it  enters  upon  its  wandering, 
which  ends  in  various  ways,  according  to  its  rank  and  deserts.  At  first  it  does 
not  go  far  away,  and  by  a  combination 
of  forces  can  often  be  recalled ;  to  which 
end  the  relations  round  the  death-bed 
call  out,  loud  and  impressively,  the  name 
of  the  departing.  It  is  believed  that 
immediately  after  death  the  soul  can  be 
recaptured.  In  a  Gilbert  Island  dirge, 
the  dead  man's  wife  calls  upon  him  as 
a  bird,  which  flies  ever  farther  to  its 
home  and  its  adoptive  parent. 

Wherever  the  two  classes  of  spirits 
— those  which  had  been  souls,  and  the 
other  which  had  never  been  in  human 
form — were  kept  distinct,  as  was  the  case 
in  the  greater  part  of  Melanesia,  the 
divine  worship  of  particular  personalities 
is  easily  developed  from  the  cult  of  souls 
in  general.  The  Fijians,  accordingly, 
distinguished  between  original  deities 
and  deified  beings.  They  prayed  to  the 
images  of  departed  relations,  or  arranged 
with  living  relations  to  raise  them  to 
divine  honours  whenever  they  should  die. 
A  man  when  in  danger  invokes  the  spirits  of  his  father  and  grandfather  in 
full  assurance  that  they  hear.  The  souls  of  old  chiefs  are  deified  after  their 
death,  and  invoked  by  name  with  sacrifices.  A  certain  gradation  is  imported 
into  this  troop  of  spirits  and  souls  by  the  distinctions  of  rank  which  prevailed 
among  their  former  earthly  tabernacles.  For  this  reason  the  destiny  of  the 
souls  of  chiefs  and  priests  which  have  quitted  the  earth  is  materially  higher 
than  that  of  the  lower  classes,  since  even  in  life  the  former  were  inhabited 
by  higher  powers,  and  these  will  have  a  yet  more  powerful  effect  when 
freed  from  the  bodily  husk.  Since  the  souls  of  chiefs  go  to  the  stars,  while 
others  wait  upon  or  within  the  earth,  the  stars  are  designated  simply  as  the 
souls  of  the  departed.  As  these  take  their  way  upward  in  the  darkness  they  are 
of  course  easily  seized  and  dragged  about  by  evil  spirits.     The  origin  of  divine 


Ancestral  image  (Korvar)  from  New  Guinea — one-fourth 
real  size.      ( British  Museum. ) 


302 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


honours  in  many  cases  falls  almost  within  the  recollection  of  living  people. 
Warriors  reverence  as  a  war-god  the  ghost  of  some  champion  whose  bones  and 
hair  have  the  effect  of  amulets.  Great  works,  such  as  the  stone  terraces  of  Waieo 
in  the  Marquesas,  were  referred  to  gods,  and  men  who  had  produced  such  things 
were  raised  to  the  rank  of  gods.  Deification  of  heroic  men  was  often  quite  a 
matter  of  notoriety.  Tabuarik,  the  most  respected  god  of  the  Gilbert  Islanders, 
was  formerly  a  chief.  Now  he  appears  sometimes  as  Hai,  sometimes  he  lives 
above  the  clouds  and  thunders,  on  which  occasion  the  face  of  his  wife  may  be  seen 
flashing  through  the  clouds.     Tamatoa.  the  chief .  of  Raiatea,  was  reverenced  as 

a  deity  even  in  his  lifetime. 
Even  in  the  legends  of  the 
great  creating  gods  we  find 
indications  of  the  notion  that 
they  have  been  men  or  can 
become  so  again,  and  a  descent 
from  the  height  of  deity  is  an 
idea  that  constantly  recurs. 

Spirits  which  never  were 
souls  appear  on  a  higher  level. 
A  Banks  Islander  of  the  older 
generation  explained  a  vui  to 
Codrington  as  follows  :  "  It 
lives,  thinks,  has  more  intelli- 
gence than  a  man,  knows 
things  which  are  secret  with- 
out seeing,  is  supernaturally 
powerful  with  mana,  has  no 
form  to  be  seen,  has  no  soul, 
because  itself  is  like  a  soul." 
They  cannot,  however,  con- 
ceive even  a  ghost  as  entirely 
formless,  and  thus  many  assert 
that  they  have  seen  a  ghost 
as  vapour,  or  smoke,  or  some 
other  indefinite  form.  Ghosts 
of  this  sort  also  pass  into  men  ;  in  Mota  nopitu  is  the  name  both  for  a  ghost  and 
for  one  possessed  by  a  ghost,  while  in  the  Banks  Islands  good  spirits  of  the  nature 
of  elves  or  gnomes  are  known  as  nopitu  vui.  They  give  gifts  to  honest  men  and 
feed  the  poor  ;  their  presence  is  betrayed  by  a  tender  sound  like  the  song  of 
children.  Places  where  they  like  to  resort  are  rongo — that  is  sacred,  as  if  they 
were  tabooed.  And  even  though  they  are  themselves  invisible,  this  connection 
with  something  corporeal  affords  a  platform  upon  which  they  can  be  treated 
corporeally.  All  stones,  trees,  and  animals  found  in  such  places  are  equally  rongo. 
The  idea  is  extended  also  to  such  animals  as  appear  frequently  in  dwellings — 
lizards,  snakes,  and  owls ;  particular  parts  of  a  stream  can  also,  for  one  reason  or 
another,  be  rongo.  The  ghost  is  estimated  according  to  the  object  in  which  he 
dwells,  and  whoever  understands  this  estimate  is  counted  able  to  mediate  for  other 
men  with  the  good  spirits.     He  must  enter  the  rongo  place  alone,  and  offer  sacrifice 


A  Fiji  Islander.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Godeffroy  Album.) 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA 


303 


there  ;  as  he  does  this  he  prays  and  lays  the 
sacrifice  upon  a  stone  which  is  beUeved  to  be 
connected  with  the  spirit.  At  one  festival  the 
Fijians  used  to  call  the  water  babies,  enticing 
them  ashore  with  toys  laid  on  the  bank,  and 
building  little  banks  in  order  to  make  it  easier 
for  them  to  climb  up.  With  a  similar  inten- 
tion in  Anaiteum  the  roads  which  led  from 
the  sacred  groves  to  the  shore  might  never  be 
blocked  by  hedges.  But  if  prayer  is  made  to 
a  Vui  to  bring  sickness  or  other  evil  upon  an 
enemy,  though  he  can  provide  the  suppliant 
with  ways  and  means  to  do  it,  he  never  brings 
about  the  trouble  himself,  since  he  is  a  good 
spirit. 

With  spiritual  beings  in  such  superabund- 
ance, no  striking  aspect  of  Nature  remains 
unprovided  for,  and  thus  thousands  of  nature- 
gods  come  into  existence,  who  are  nothing  but 
localised  spirits  or  souls.  The  sea  alone  is 
ruled  by  some  twenty  of  them  (see  woodcut  on 
p.  39).  Some  of  them  employ  the  large  blue 
shark  as  their  instrument  of  vengeance.  Sharks 
are  fed  on  fish  and  pigs  till  they  acquire  the 
habit  of  approaching  the  shore  at  certain 
times  ;  and  the  natives  could  assure  you  that 
they  came  at  the  bidding  of  the  priest. 
Another  famous  sea-god  is  Hiro,  originally  a 
bold  and  ingenious  native  of  Raiatea,  who 
joined  the  ancient  band  of  gods  so  recently 
that  until  the  fall  of  paganism  his  skull  was 
on  view  in  Opoa. 

Chief  among  the  gods  of  the  air,  who  are 
often  worshipped  in  the  form  of  birds,  are  two 
children  of  Tangaroa,  brother  and  sister.  They 
dwell  not  far  from  the  rock  that  bears  the 
earth  ;  and  any  neglect  of  their  worship  they 
punish  with  storms  and  tempests.  They  were 
invoked  to  raise  hurricanes  when  a  hostile  fleet 
was  fitting  out.  Even  at  this  day  many 
islanders  believe  that  in  old  times  evil  spirits 
had  power  over  the  winds,  seeing  that  since 
the  general  conversion  to  Christianity  there 
are  never  such  terrible  storms  as  formerly. 
The  upper  regions  of  the  air  are  also  peopled 
with  higher  beings.  All  the  heavenly  bodies 
were  looked  upon  as  gods.  When  the  sun 
or  the  moon   is  eclipsed,  some  offended  deity 


.  Sacred  drum  with  carving,  from  the 
Harvey  Islands — one-fourth  real  size 
(Christy  Collection).  2.  Stick  calen- 
dar of  the  Ngati  Ranki  tribe  in  New 
Zealand  (British  Museum). 


304  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

has  swallowed  it ;  and  he  is  induced  by  abundant  gifts  to  set  the  orb  free 
again.  They  see  gods  or  souls  in  meteors  ;  and  Lamont  mentions  the  case  of  a 
boy  in  Penrhyn  who  \\'ept  at  seeing  a  falling  star,  believing  that  the  soul  of  an 
ancestor  had  appeared  to  him.  Fairies  that  inhabit  the  mountains  become  visible 
in  cloudy  weather;  and  cloud  is  the  offspring  of  Rangi,  the  sky,  and  Papatu 
Anuku,  the  wide  plain.  Giants  with  fiery  eyes  live  on  solitary  islands,  like  the 
desert  volcanic  island  Manua  near  Raiatea.  In  Hawaii  are  haunted  places  where 
ghosts  go  in  procession  to  the  sound  of  the  pipe,  and  whoever  hears  them  dies. 
Prognostications  surround  the  whole  of  life  with  a  dense  network  of  inevitable  con- 
sequences, and  superstition  has  little  trouble  in  discovering  the  most  probable 
connection  between  cause  and  effect.  Thus  the  subjection  of  Tahiti  to  a  French 
Protectorate  was  foretold  by  a  crack  in  the  post  supporting  the  palace  gate. 

Lastly,  spiritual  beings  preside  over  individual  occupations.  Special  gods 
send  the  migratory  fish  inshore  at  stated  times  ;  special  gods  are  invoked  by 
fishermen  when  they  are  making  nets,  going  on  board,  or  working  at  sea.  So, 
too,  agriculturists,  carpenters,  house  and  boat  builders,  have  patterns  peculiar  to 
their  craft.  Even  games  are  under  the  tutelage  of  five  or  six  gods  ;  and  not  less, 
particular  crimes  and  transgressions.  The  chiefs  think  it  no  shame  to  invoke 
Hiro,  as  protector  of  robbers,  on  their  privy  raids,  which  turn  out  most  prosper- 
ously on  the  17th,  1 8th,  and  19th  nights  of  the  month.  But  when  a  pig  is  stolen, 
he  often  is  put  off  with  a  piece  of  the  tail,  offered  with  the  words  :  "  Here  is  a  bit 
of  the  pig  ;   say  nothing  about  it,  good  Hiro." 

The  tendency  to  multiply  parallel  conceptions  makes  the  number  of  the  gods 
increase.  Thus  many  members  of  the  heavenly  crowd  suggest  that  they  are  the 
creations  of  the  hieroglyphic  languages  of  the  priests,  meeting  as  this  does  the 
needs  of  a  foreboding  spiritually-minded  imagination.  In  this  fashion  legendary 
figures  multiply ;  and  are  gradually  impersonified  as  brothers  and  sisters,  till 
they  represent  whole  families. 

It  is  difficult  to  separate  the  guardian  spirits  of  individuals  from  those  of  the 
tribe  ;  for  both  are  treated  alike,  and  are  often  essentially  the  same.  The  totem 
system  comes  in  here.  "  One  Samoan  saw  his  god  in  the  eel,  another  in  the  shark, 
another  in  the  turtle,  another  in  the  dog,  another  in  the  owl,  another  in  the  lizard, 
and  so  on  through  every  class  of  sea-fishes,  birds,  quadrupeds,  and  every  kind  of 
living  thing,  including  even  several  mollusks.  A  man  would  eat  freely  of  what 
was  regarded  as  the  incarnation  of  the  god  of  another  man,  but  the  incarnation 
of  his  own  god  he  would  consider  it  death  to  injure  or  to  eat ;  for  the  god  v/as 
supposed  to  avenge  the  guilt  by  taking  up  his  abode  in  that  person's  body,  and 
causing  to  generate  there  the  very  thing  which  he  had  eaten,  until  it  produced 
death."  1 

Beside  the  function  of  acting  as  the  outward  shell  of  guardian  spirits,  special  duties 
were  allotted,  in  the  history  of  the  gods  and  of  their  dealing  with  men,  to  animated 
objects.  We  hear  much  of  the  tree  of  life,  by  whose  topmost  branches  the  gods 
left  heaven  when  descending  to  earth.  In  Tonga,  the  Toa-\x&^  grew  up  to  heaven 
for  that  purpose.  The  talking  tree  is  found  near  the  habitation  of  Ikuleo,  the  lord 
of  heaven  ;  and  if  he  demands  the  death  of  a  man,  a  canoe  is  sent  to  fetch  him. 
This  tree  takes  the  souls  ;  and  when  men  grew  as  shoots  from  the  world-tree,  they 
received  their  souls  from  the  height  of  heaven.     Legend  reduced  the  heavenly 

['  Turner's  Samoa.  ] 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA 


305 


growth  to  a  tree  from  which  a  man  looked  into  heaven,  as  in  Pelew ;  or,  as  in  the 
Banks  Islands,  made  it  grow  till  the  divine  being,  Quat,  climbed  up  it  to  escape 
his  pursuers.  Souls  of  gods,  too,  are  confined  in  trees.  Thus  Maui  learned  from 
his  uncle  Inaporari,  how  to  recognise  in  the  lower  world,  by  knocking  on  them, 
the  noro-trees  in  which 
the  lives  of  his  brethren 
and  himself  were  im- 
prisoned. Among  the 
Maoris  trees  represent 
the  god  Tane,  whose 
children  are  the  birds 
of  land  and  sea.  In 
Tahiti,  the  ao -tree  is 
planted  near  temples, 
since  the  god  lives  in 
it.  From  the  jagged 
splinters  of  the  az(o- 
tree,  Tangaroa,  the  self- 
begotten,  created  the 
inferior  gods  before  he 
produced  men.  In 
Melanesia,  the  Fijians 
venerate  trees  by  throw- 
ing leaves  on  the  spot 
where  the  last  evening 
shadow  lies.  Besides 
the  vesi-tree,  the  wood 
of  which  is  good  for 
canoes,  the  fig-tree  with 
its  spreading  roots,  and 
any  coco-palm  which 
forks,  are  regarded  as 
seats  for  the  gods,  and 
so  sacred.  The  good 
little  soul-deities  of  the 
Veli   sing  from  hollow 

trees.         ^VeaponS      are      Magic  dolls  made  of  human  bone,  votive  bunches  of  hair,  and  tortoise  skull, 
.  ,  .  from    a  temple  in   the   Admiralty  Islands — one-fifth   real   size.      (Christy 

rubbed     with     certain  Collection.) 

leaves  to  ensure  suc- 
cess ;  but  in  Vate,  leaves  are  buried  near  a  house  in  order  to  cast  a  shade 
over  it  and  cause  illness.  In  the  New  Hebrides  the  pandanus  receives  special 
reverence.  At  sacred  dances  the  neophytes  appear  shrouded  in  bunches 
of  pandanus,  and  crowned  with  garlands  of  the  same.  In  Micronesia,  too, 
sacred  trees  are  reverenced ;  for  example,  in  Bygor,  coco-palms  standing  in 
enclosures,  because  the  Am  descend  on  to  their  tops.  In  Pelew,  the  Ka/ii 
who  created  the  names  of  the  chiefs,  and  dwelt  originally  within  the  earth, 
is  embodied  in  great  forest  trees.  A  bush  that  grows  before  the  king's  house 
in   Korror  passes  for  the  last  scion  of  a  plant  brought  from  a  submerged  spirit 

X 


3o6 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


land  ;   and  at  Tapituea  in  the  Gilberts,  New  Year's  sacrifices  are  offered  under 
an  old  Mamam-tree. 

Birds  appear  in  the  Mani-legend  as  bearers  and  guardians  of  fire  ;  and  also 
in  a  legend  of  the  creation  of  man.     Men  were  formed  by  the  snipe  or  the  lark, 
who  was  sent  to  earth  by  its   fkther  Tangaroa,  during  the   process  of  scratching  | 
up  worms.     A  Samoan  legend  makes  the  souls  of  men  in  bird  shape  be  brought 
down  by  the   same   birds.     The   seeds   of  useful    plants    are   brought   to   earth 

moon.  The  New  Zealander  regarded 
the  cockatoo  as  sacred  ;  while  it  was 
a  bad  omen  if  the  iarata -hird  flew 
over  a  column  of  warriors  on  the 
march.  The  owl  caused  absolute 
terror.  Various  other  birds  were  also 
sacred  in  Polynesia  as  the  bringers  of  fire 
and  souls  ;  and  in  Tahiti  the  heron  and 
the  otaiare-hird.  Red  feathers  symbol- 
ised the  fire  which  the  Creator  places  in 
all  living  beings.  One  who  knows  Fiji, 
says:  "  If  you  would  sketch  an  appro- 
priate emblem  of  the  old  Fijian  religion, 
you  must  select  a  fine  pandanus,  beneath 
which  is  sleeping  coiled  up  a^  mighty 
snake,  while  hard  by  a  cock  with  fine 
feathers  is  crowing  to  wake  the  sleeper." 
This  bird,  the  harbinger  of  day,  the 
herald  of  sunlight,  the  bird  of  the  sun- 
god,  is  the  same  for  destroying  which 
the  sons  of  Ndengeh  aroused  the  wrath 
of  the  fathers  of  the  gods  to  such  a 
pitch  that  he  sent  a  great  deluge  on 
the  earth.  Great  white  shells  adorned 
his  legs,  and  so  numerous  were  his 
beautiful  feathers,  that  by  plucking  one 
wing  only  you  could  cover  the  whole 
mountain-top  as  with  a  cloud.  In  the  rest  of  Melanesia,  next  to  the  warm 
lizard,  the  buceros,  hornbill  or  rhinoceros  bird,  is  the  most  frequent  subject  of 
sculpture.  In  the  Hamburg  Museum  is  a  carving,  in  which  he  is  taking  a  child 
from  its  mother's  body  with  his  ripping  beak. 

Among  animals,  the  pig  is  the  most  distinguished  in  fable.  Giants  from  Tahiti 
embarked  in  rafts  to  fight  the  man-eating  pig  in  Eiva ;  or  Hiro,  born  of  the  sun, 
slew  it.  Pigs  were  the  most  costly  victims  for  sacrifice,  and  only  the  priests  might 
enter  their  styes.  In  Nukahiva  a  stone  image  of  a  pig's  head  was  found  in 
company  with  human  bones.  Besides  these,  we  find  fabulous  animals.  The 
subject,  at  once  oceanic  and  amphibious,  of  an  animal  living  on  the  land  and 
with  a  serpent  or  eel-shaped  extremity  reaching  to  the  sea,  occurs  in  Fiji  and 
elsewhere  in  Melanesia,  in  the  form  of  tailed  gods,  as  in  the  souls  of  the  chiefs 
lying  in  prayer  before  Siuleo. 

Here,  as  in  Australia,  lizards  are  involved  in  a  special  cycle  of  legends,  bringing 


Ancestral  images  from  Easter  Island — one-tenth  real  size. 
(Munich  Museum.) 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA  307 


them  into  close  connection  with  the  divine  figure  which  strikes  its  roots  deeply, 
the  god  of  earthquake.  In  Fiji  he  Hved  in  a  cave,  and  when  he  was  driven  thence 
by  incantations  the  giant  Hzard  which  he  kept  in  a  cage  as  a  plaything  remained 
behind  till  it  was  killed  by  the  chief  Tara.  With  it  the  legend  connected  an 
earthwork  built  in  the  form  of  a  great  lizard,  on  the  river  Waitio.  On  a  campaign 
a  green  lizard  is  counted  a  bad  omen.  The  Atuas  like  to  appear  in  the  form  of 
lizards.  Lizards  creep  through  the  openings  of  the  body  and  bring  illness  ;  and 
so  among  the  Maoris  the  lizard  god  Mokotiti  causes  headache.  Tare  was  also 
spoken  of  as  dwelling  in  a  lizard.  Among  the  Melanesians,  snakes  were,  of  all 
animals,  the  most  revered,  and  some  places  in  Fiji  were  actually  famous  for  snake 
worship.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Hattams  of  New  Guinea  preferred  the  snake  to 
all  other  animals  for  food.  Among  the  temple  idols  of  the  Papuas  in  Waigu, 
the  crocodile  also  is  found.  Idols,  shark  below  and  man  above,  were  set  up  on 
houses  in  the  Solomon  Islands,  to  avert  evil  influences.  Skulls  of  those  valuable 
food  animals,  the  turtles,  were  kept  in  the  temples.  From  Easter  Island  we  have 
fish-headed  idols,  as  shown  on  p.  50  ;  and  in  Florida  large  eels  are  favourite 
places  of  residence  for  the  souls  of  the  dead. 

Lastly,  we  must  refer  to  the  widely-spread  cult  of  stones.  In  Melanesia, 
hardly  any  sacred  place  is  without  its  holy  stone.  The  splintered  and  cloven 
rocks  of  the  coast  gave  rise  to  legends  of  all  sorts,  which  in  many  cases  sound 
like  an  echo  of  those  which  we  know  in  the  west.  Rocky  wastes  are  shown  as 
the  battlefields  of  contending  gods,  or  the  places  where,  overtaken  by  daylight 
in  the  task  of  creating  islands,  they  were  obliged  to  leave  the  materials  lying 
about.  Gods  were  made  the  constructors  of  the  great  stone  figures  on  Easter 
Island.  Herewith,  in  islands  where  stone  idols  abound,  legends  were  connected  ; 
as  in  Tokelau,  where  the  first  man  sprang  from  stone,  and  manufactured  a  woman 
out  of  sand,  inserting  a  rib  ;  or  as'  in  Tonga  Levu,  where  a  "  dolmen  "  built  by 
Tangaroa  indicates  the  direction  in  which  the  gods  travelled  to  Vavau  and 
Hapai.  In  the  Gilberts,  sacrifices  are  offered  on  one  stone  in  a  stone  circle,  this 
being  wreathed,  with  the  innermost  leaf  of  a  palm.  Fishermen  worship  upright 
stones,  and  idols  may  be  made  only  of  a  particular  sort  of  rock.  "Rain-stones"  are 
put  in  the  fire  when  it  rains  too  much,  but  wetted  in  time  of  drought.  Some  saw 
in  stones  the  petrified  remains  of  fish  left  behind  by  the  great  flood.  Stone  idols, 
wrapped  with  cloth,  are  venerated  in  Micronesia,  many  of  them  being  brought 
from  a  distance.  In  a  stone  of  this  kind  dwells  Tuitokelau,  who  is  revered  as  a 
god.  In  Mota,  little  stones  are  a  remedy  for  evil  of  every  kind.  Circumcision 
may,  in  New  Guinea,  be  performed  only  with  freshly-manufactured  stone  knives  ; 
though  a  bamboo  splinter  is  allowed  in  cases  of  necessity.  In  the  Pelews, 
Kubary  found  an  idol  of  black  volcanic  rock.  Small  ancestor-images  of  stone 
were  placed  by  the  fishermen  on  their  nets  for  luck.  In  Fiji,  cliffs  are  the  birth- 
place of  the  good  Ndengeh  ;  in  Pelew,  the  last  remains  of  submerged  spirit- 
islands,  whence  the  giant  forefathers  of  the  present  population,  the  Kalits,  came 
into  the  land.  Magic  treasures  often  lie  under  them  ;  or,  as  below  a  reef  in 
Korror,  the  kossol-xoo'i,  which,  laid  on  the  prow  of  a  canoe,  of  itself  guides  the 
voyage  to  its  end. 

Reverence  is  also  paid  to  the  sea ;  everything  connected  with  it — as  naviga- 
tion or  shipbuilding — is  highly  esteemed.  In  Nukuor  the  priest  strikes  eight 
blows  with  a  consecrated  axe  on  the  tree  from  which  a  canoe  is  to  be  built,  and 


3o8  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

it  may  not  be  felled  or  worked  except  in  the  three  months  elapsing  after  the 
death  of  the  spiritual  chief  of  the  tribe.  The  people  of  Ponape  hold  a  peculiar 
feast  at  which  all  boats  built  in  the  previous  year  are  dedicated  to  the  gods. 
The  paddle  that  marks  a  grave  represents  the  noblest  activity  of  the  man,  as  the 
spindle  that  of  the  woman  ;  and  not  corpses  only,  but  persons  dangerously  ill  or 
decrepit  from  age,  are  exposed  in  boats.  In  Mortlock  the  highest  honour  is  paid 
to  the  god  of  the  sea,  by  the  conveyance  to  him  of  those  who  have  fallen  in 
battle,  while  those  who  have  died  naturally  are  buried  in  the  ground. 

Under  the  breath  of  the  universal  tendency  to  animism  which  penetrated 
through  mankind  and  Nature,  gods  and  idols  sprang  up  in  crowds,  and  bore  the 
Oceanian  mind  into  a  labyrinth  of  supra-terrestrial  and  sub-terrestrial  conceptions. 
A  racial  feature  appears  in  this  luxuriant  formative  impulse.  It  is  not  by  chance 
that  Polynesia  and  Madagascar  have  a  great  extent  of  theogony  in  common,  in 
the  form  of  an  extremely  polytheistic  mythology  in  one  region,  of  exuberant 
fetishism  in  the  other.  And  even  if  but  a  small  fraction  of  these  spirits  soared  to 
the  heights  of  divine  honours,  while  the  great  mass  remained  attached  to  the  soil, 
yet  the  total  was  large.  The  list  made  by  the  missionaries  in  Raiatea  contains 
nearly  a  hundred  names  of  gods.  Whether  certain  ones  rose  out  of  the  mass 
depended  on  how  the  tribe  lived.  In  a  more  distinct  order,  among  the  world  of 
gods,  we  see  a  reflection  of  the  stability  of  tradition.  Thus  in  general  more  gods 
are  found  in  the  east  among  the  Polynesians,  more  spirits  and  ghosts  among  the 
Melanesians  and  Micronesians  to  the  west.  Just  when  Christianity  reached 
Polynesia,  they  were  in  the  thick  of  a  brisk  process  of  god-manufacture  ;  new 
shoots,  new  blooms,  sent  forth  by  their  excited  fancy,  found  a  more  secure  footing, 
partly  in  the  more  firmly  crystallised  cosmogonic  legends,  partly  in  a  system  of 
hierarchies  and  relationships,  which  naively  spiritualised  conditions  prevailing  on 
earth.  Where  the  tendency  to  discuss  genealogical  traditions  on  fine  evenings 
in  places  of  public  resort  prevailed,  as  in  New  Zealand,  time  brought  about 
organised  methods  of  recording  (see  woodcut  on  p.  303).  In  such  cases  theology 
gains  a  firmer  consistency  than  in  districts  where  life  is  lax,  and  traditions 
and  the  priesthood  have  no  organs. 

The  highest  gods  were  bound  together  by  a  common  origin  from  Chaos  or 
Po,  anterior  to  all  existence  ;  these  were  called  the  offspring  of  Night.  Then 
demigods  and  heroes,  as  well  as  even  men  of  high  birth,  made  their  way  into 
the  circle,  with  the  result  of  obscuring  Polynesian  mythology.  These  late-promoted 
were  often  just  the  most  considered  in  the  realm  of  gods,  even  though  they  might 
be  locally  limited.  On  the  other  hand,  to  one  only  belongs,  in  the  highest  measure, 
a  profounder  connection  with  cosmogony  ;  this  is  Tangaroa,  who  is  revered  even 
in  remoter  islands,  as  Taaroa  and  Kanaloa.  A  Raiatean  legend  gives  a  grand 
picture  of  his  all-pervading  power  ;  how  at  first,  concealed  in  an  egg-shaped  shell, 
he  hovered  around  in  the  dark  space  of  air,  until  weary  of  the  monotonous  move- 
ment, he  stretched  forth  his  hands  and  rose  upright,  and  all  became  light  around 
him.  He  looked  down  to  the  sand  on  the  sea-shore,  and  said  :  "  Come  up  hither." 
The  sand  replied :  "  I  cannot  fly  to  thee  in  the  sky."  Then  he  said  to  the  rocks : 
"  Come  up  hither  to  me."  They  answered  :  "  We  are  rooted  in  the  ground,  and 
cannot  leap  on  high  to  thee."  So  the  god  came  down  to  them,  flung  off  his 
shell,  and  added  it  to  the  mass  of  the  earth,  which  became  greater  thereby. 
From  the  sherds  of  the  shell  were  made   the   islands.      Then  he  formed  men  out 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA  309 


of  his  back,  and  turned  himself  into  a  boat.  As  he  rowed  in  the  storm,  space 
was  filled  with  his  blood,  which  gave  its  colour  to  the  sea,  and,  spreading  from  the 
sea  to  the  air,  made  the  morning  and  evening  glows.  At  last  his  skeleton,  as  it 
lay  on  the  ground  with  the  backbone  uppermost,  became  an  abode  for  all  gods, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  model  for  the  temple  ;  and  Tangaroa  became  the  sky. 

In  other  traditions  he  appears  as  the  Polynesian  Neptune  ;  and  he  was  also 
worshipped  as  the  guardian  of  those  who  went  to  sea  in  dug-out  canoes. 
Lastly,  as  the  giver  of  the  model  for  the  temple,  he  was  the  patron  of  artists. 
It  is  indeed  obvious  enough  for  a  maritime  people  to  make  the  god  of  the  sea 
the  father  and  the  first  of  the  gods.  While  it  is  under  his  supreme  sway  that 
creation  develops  from  plants  through  reptiles  to  men,  these  last  were  finished 
by  the  god  Naio,  and  brought  nearer  to  the  gods  themselves.  This  Naio,  who 
arranges  the  revolution  of  the  sun  and  the  fixity  of  the  earth,  leads  ultimately 
to  the  Maui  of  New  Zealand.  By  this  addition  of  subsidiary  or  assistant  gods, 
Tangaroa's  position  as  time  went  on  got  obliterated.  He  was  called  the  Un- 
created, the  Survivor  from  the  age  of  Night,  and  hymned  as  follows  : — 

Taaroa  all  around  us. 


Taaroa  like  the  seed-ground, 
Taaroa,  rocks'  foundation, 
Taaroa,  like  the  sea-sand, 


Taaroa,  widest  spreading, 
Taaroa,  light  forth-breaking, 
Taaroa  rules  within  us. 


Taaroa  down  beneath  us, 
Taaroa,  lord  of  wisdom. 


The  places  where  he  was  publicly  worshipped  were  but  few.  With  his  wife,  by 
whom  he  had  a  son  and  a  daughter,  who  in  their  turn  had  two  sons,  he  is  the 
first  to  emerge  from  Chaos  ;  and  embracing  the  rocky  soil  he  begat  land  and 
sea.  But  when  the  forerunners  of  the  day — the  dark-blue  and  light-blue  sky — 
came  to  him,  begging  a  soul  for  the  earth,  he  bade  his  son  Raitubu  to  carry  out 
his  will.  He,  by  merely  looking  at  heaven  and  earth,  produced  all  that  is  in 
earth,  sky,  and  sea. 

In  Tangaroa's  gigantic  creative  force,  which  allows  good  and  evil  to  proceed 
from  it  indiscriminately,  the  root  of  his  transformation  to  an  evil  principle  may 
already  be  seen.  In  Tonga  he  eclipses  the  sun,  and  meets  us  in  Hawaii  as  the 
evil  spirit  among  the  four  chief  deities.  In  Fiji,  tagaloa  means  the  odour  of  a 
corpse. 

In  connection  with  Tangaroa  another  divine  figure  represents  the  man -forming 
side  of  his  creation  ;  many  traditions  record  Tii  as  the  father  of  the  human  race, 
with  his  wife  as  the  mother  of  mankind.  Sprung  from  the  alliance  of  a  descendant 
of  Tangaroa's  with  the  sand  of  the  shore,  he  himself  formed  his  own  wife,  and 
their  children  were  the  patriarchs  of  the  human  race.  In  Opoa,  two  Tiis — one  of 
the  land,  one  of  the  sea — are  said  to  have  taken  human  bodies,  and  to  have  peopled 
the  islands,  hitherto  inhabited  by  gods  only.  But  some  held  that  Tii  and  Tangaroa 
were  one  and  the  same  being,  like  the  sun  by  day  and  by  night.  Some  again 
asserted  of  each  alike  that  he  was  the  first  man  who,  living  on  after  his  death, 
was  called  by  the  name  ;  whence  also  the  spirits  of  the  departed  had  received 
this  appellation.  This  legend  looks  like  an  extension  of  the  notion,  which  is 
spread  all  over  Polynesia,  of  Tangaroa  the  creator  ;  he  and  his  wife  were  made 
to  have  inhabited  and  peopled  all  the  islands  in  succession.  Tii  is  in  more  ways 
a  benefactor  of  the  human  race,  by  raising  the  heaven  above  the  earth,  by 
mutilating  the  earthquake  god,  by  bringing  fire,  and  creating  man.  Thereby  he 
is  closely  linked  with  Maui ;  and  consistently  with  this  we  meet  him  in  the 
Society  Isles  as  god  of  light,  sprung  from  the  sun  and  moon. 


3IO 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Thus  did  mythology  develop  from  cosmogony,  and  here  too  it  owes  its 
existence  mainly  to  a  dim  impulse  towards  knowledge.  The  impulse  towards 
an  arrangement  of  the  conceptions  of  the  next  world  has  contributed  something 
to  it.  Lords  of  heaven  and  hell  were  needed.  Thus  the  eternal  mirror  of 
anthropomorphic  impulse  casts  upon  the  deep  shining  sky,  and  upon  the 
wide  horizon  of  its  island  home,  magnified  and  distorted 
human  figures  as  bearers  of  the  creative  and  destructive 
forces  of  nature.  And  they  who  there  act  and  suffer 
gigantically  are  genuine  Polynesians  all  the  while.  Efforts 
after  dominion  and  power,  jealous  claims  to  honour  and 
possession,  inexorable  vengeance  for  neglect,  are  common 
to  all ;  not  one  is  adorned  with  moral  pre-eminence, 
surpassing  wisdom,  or  spontaneous  goodness ;  crimes  of 
every  sort  find  example  and  encouragement  in  the  spirit- 
world.  Thus  even  the  highest  beings  are  drawn  down  to 
earth  by  the  polytheism  which  makes  them  in  the  likeness 
of  men.  Only  in  the  beginnings  of  creation  is  the  impulse 
to  express  in  an  image  some  inkling  of  the  origin  and  inter- 
dependence of  beings  preserved.  Creation  begins  in  pro- 
found metaphysical  depths.  Here  mythology  goes  near  to 
bring  forth  science.  Poetry  and  legend  struggle  to  explain 
the  riddle  of  the  world,  but  in  vain.  Yet  it  is  a  brilliant 
testimony  to  the  intellectual  ability  of  the  Polynesians;  If 
their  development  in  other  domains  had  kept  pace  with  it, 
they  would  have  been  a  race  of  high  distinction  ;  but  at 
bottom  the  limitations  of  a  life  confined  to  the  islands 
recur  everywhere  within  their  wide  sea-horizon.  The  very 
beginning  of  cosmogony  followed  the  course  of  natural 
development :  the  central  point  of  the  world  came  into 
existence  by  land  being  cast  up  from  the  primeval  bottom, 
and  later -discovered  islands  were  fished  up  by  heroes. 
Moreover,  the  whole  is  permeated  by  the  view  that  the 
primitive  forces  of  Nature,  from  which,  personified  as  gods, 
the  world  of  phenomena  has  come  forth,  are  always  striving, 
in  pursuance  of  a  process  of  development  which  is  originally 
included  in  them,  to  swallow  it  up  again. 

Although  the  existence  of  the  gods  had  a  beginning, 
Idol  from  New  Zealand  it  knows  no  end  :  SO  they  hold  in  Tonga.  Earth,  heaven, 
all  things,  are  of  themselves  divine ;  and  therefore  Po, 
the  Night,  is  placed  at  the  beginning.  Po  was  in  labour 
for  ten  nights,  and  on  the  tenth  appeared  Kaka,  father  of  Rangi  and  Papa,  from 
whom  sprang  Tane,  with  his  eight  brothers.  The  nights  had  special  names,  to 
which  the  priests  gave  a  profound  interpretation.  Similarly,  among  the  Maoris, 
creation  commences  with  the  night.  After  untold  periods  desire  awakes,  then 
longing,  then  feeling.  Thought  follows  upon  the  first  pulse  of  life,  or  the  first 
breath  drawn  ;  and  upon  thought,  mental  activity.  Then  springs  up  the  wish, 
directed  to  the  sacred  mystery  or  great  riddle  of  life.  Later,  from  the  material 
prccreative  power  of  love  is  developed  the  clinging  to  existence,  permeated  by  a 


— one  -  half      real      size. 
(Christy  Collection.) 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA  3" 


joyous  sense  of  pleasure.  Lastly,  Atea,  the  universe,  floats  in  space,  divided  by 
the  difference  of  sex  into  Rangi  and  Papa,  Heaven  and  Earth  ;  and  individual 
creations  now  begin.  Bastian  asks  in  reference  to  this  towering  structure  of 
thought :  "  Did  some  disguised  Anaximander  or  Pythagoras  wander  this  way  ? " 
In  every  phrase,  as  we  may  say,  are  found  resemblances  with  Asiatic  or  American 
cosmogonies.  There  is  no  need  to  refer  to  the  Egyptian  Ru  and  Buto,  sun  and 
night ;  every  cosmogonic  idea  of  the  Oceanians  has  relatives  east  and  west  of  the 
Ocean. 

Papa,  the  Earth,  and  Rangi,  the  sky,  lay  in  close  contact  with  each  other. 
From  the  attempts  of  poetry  to  explain  their  separation,  and  the  consequent 
vaulting  of  heaven,  sprang  the  whole  legend  of  the  gods,  taking  one  form  in 
Tahiti,  another  in  Tonga,  yet  another  in  Samoa.  A  more  localised  variation 
brings  us  from  Ru-Rongo,  the  god  of  heaven,  to  Tangaroa.  Kaka,  brother  to 
Papa,  the  earth,  represents  the  sky,  or  the  light,  in  contrast  to  her.  In  Hawaii 
he  appears  as  Wakea,  and  Papa's  husband,  who,  in  conjunction  with  her  gives 
birth  to  many  generations  of  gods,  notably  the  series  of  the  Mauis.  Diving  into 
the  depths  of  the  sea,  he  united  himself  with  the  sea-goddess  ;  and  after  he  had 
returned  to  land,  the  Moa-hirds  begotten  of  this  union  lighted  on  his  shoulders. 

Metaphysical  interpretations  of  what  preceded  the  creation  of  earth  are  only 
conceivable  among  Polynesians  of  a  large  community,  where  a  regular  priestly 
order  rendered  a  strict  tradition  possible — as  in  Hawaii,  the  Society  Islands,  or 
New  Zealand.  Where  the  lore  was  handed  on  only  by  the  mixed  society  of  the 
secret  leagues,  the  history  of  creation  remains  wholly  in  the  region  of  fable  or 
legend.  No  doubt  the  outlines  show  faintly  through,  and  some  names  recur  ;  but 
in  details  the  conception  has  changed.  It  is  with  an  interest  born  of  old 
acquaintance  that  we  find  carpenters  and  artists  in  Mortlock  worshipping  the 
zenith  under  the  name  Lageilang  as  their  most  special  patron-god  ;  by  his  nature 
he  must  be  Rangi.  Still  more  familiar,  as  we  go  east,  is  the  notion  of  the  sky 
as  found  in  the  Gilberts,  according  to  which  it  was  a  spherical  shell  lying  close 
to  the  earth,  which  a  hero  helped  the  gods  to  push  higher.  His  sister,  in  the 
form  of  a  cuttle-fish,  supported  him.  Brother  and  sister  appear  otherwise,  in  the 
process  of  creation,  as  representing  the  male  and  female  principles — as  in  the 
Mariannes,  the  Carolines,  Pelews,  and  elsewhere. 

The  character  of  the  Melanesian  variations  on  Polynesian  legends  of  the  gods 
is  that  of  a  jocose,  almost  anecdotic  lowering  of  them  to  humbler  spheres.  What 
is  myth  in  Polynesia  here  becomes  fairy-tale,  losing  thereby  in  grandeur,  but 
gaining  in  human  affability.  The  primitive  inhabitants  of  the  islands,  who 
correspond  to  the  Kalits  of  Micronesia,  are  no  giants,  but  helpful  gnomes  ;  and 
their  chief,  Marawa,  still  shows  treasures  hidden  in  clefts  of  the  rocks  to  poor 
people  who  confide  in  him.  Sportive  turns  are  in  accordance  with  the  cheerful 
nature  of  these  curly-haired  folk.  In  the  New  Hebrides  they  say  of  the  creator, 
that  he  first  made  men  go  on  all  fours,  and  pigs  upright.  But  this  annoyed  the 
birds  and  reptiles,  and  they  called  a  meeting,  at  which  the  lizard  was  foremost  in 
demanding  a  change,  while  the  wagtail  strongly  opposed.  The  lizard  forced  his 
way  through,  crawled  up  a  coco-palm,  and  jumped  down  on  the  back  of  a  pig, 
making  it  drop  on  to  its  fore-legs.  Since  then  pigs  go  on  all  fours,  men  upright. 
But  the  value  of  these  traditions  is  quite  misunderstood,  if,  as  for  obvious  reasons 
the    missionaries    are   apt  to   do,  we    see    in   these  spirits,   who    at    bottom    are 


312 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


cosmogonic  figures,  only  the  heroes  of  fairy  tales.  The  Polynesian  legend  of  the 
fishing  up  of  the  land  from  the  depths  of  the  sea  takes  the  following  form  in  Yap ; 
Mathikethik  went  out  fishing  with  his  two  elder  brothers.  First,  he  hooked  up 
crops  of  all  sorts,  and  taro  ;  then  the  island  of  Fais.  His  hook  is  kept  by  the 
priests  ;  and  since,  if  it  were  destroyed,  Fais  also  would  disappear,  the  inhabitants 


Tahitian  idols,  carved  in  wood — one-tentli  real  size.      (London  iVIissionary  Society's  Collection.) 

of  that  island  are  in  constant  subjection  to  the  menaces  of  the  Yap  chiefs.  Thus 
can  a  great  piece  of  cosmogonic  imagery  sink  to  the  level  of  trick  and  superstition. 
The  connection  of  creative  activity  with  sun  and  moon,  still  so  clear  in 
Polynesia,  has  become  in  Micronesia  quite  legendary.  In  Pelew  they  relate  how 
a  man  and  his  wife,  tired  of  staying  in  that  island,  went  to  the  stone  in  Eymelijk 
whence  they  sprung,  and  called  on  the  moon.  It  approached,  and  they  climbed 
on  to  a  serpent's  neck,  and  so  reached  the  moon,  where  they  may  now  be  seen. 
Other  sun  and  moon  notions  take  a  similarly  odd  form.  When  the  moon  wanes, 
sorcerers  are  eating  it  in  dough.  The  sun  shines  at  night  in  another  country. 
Once  upon  a  time  four  men  in  Pelew,  seeing  the  sun  setting,  leaped  hastily  into 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA  3'3 


a  canoe.  They  went  on  till  they  got  to  the  denges-iree.,  and  the  sun  asked  what 
they  wanted.  The -people  said,  to  visit  him  ;  and  he  told  them  to  let  their  canoe 
drift,  and  plunge  down  after  him.  The  islanders  did  so,  and  found  themselves 
in  a  strange  country,  in  a  well-built  house,  where  the  sun  entertained  them.  The 
viands  served  in  the  dishes  were  tiny  in  size,  but  got  no  smaller  with  eating.  At 
length  the  people  prepared  to  depart  ;  but  as  their  canoe  had  floated  away,  the 
sun  took  a  thick  bamboo-cane,  an  article  hitherto  unknown  in  Pelew,  and  shut 
them  in  it.  He  bade  the  bamboo  float  to  Ngarginkl  ;  the  men  arrived  there 
safely,  and  became  the  four  highest  chiefs.  But  the  bamboo  floated  away  to 
Ngareko-basango,  where  there  are  thickets  of  bamboo  to  this  day,  but  none  on 
Peleliu.  In  remembrance  of  their  deed,  however,  the  people  of  Ngarginkl  are 
allowed  to  fetch  bamboos  from  thence. 

The  birth  of  the  creator  from  stone  or  from  the  earth  is  the  starting-point  of 
Fijian  and  New  Hebridean  cosmogony.  Ndengeh's  priests  point  out  a  rock, 
which  rises  from  a  river  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  which  he  inhabits,  and  say  it  is  his 
father.  The  interpretation  is  to  be  found  in  the  connection  between  father 
Heaven  and  mother  Earth.  Thus  among  the  Banks  Islanders  the  supreme  god, 
Qat,  emerges  from  a  stone,  which  was  his  mother ;  and  then  with  the  help  of  his 
companion,  Marawa,  creates  the  rest  of  the  world.  Marawa  is  invoked  with  Qat 
in  all  emergencies,  and  may  easily  be  recognised  as  the  legendary  Maui  of  New 
Zealand  and  Hawaii.  Qat  was  doomed  to  be  slain,  but  succeeded  in  climbing  a 
nutmeg-tree.  He  had  hardly  reached  the  top  when,  by  the  arts  of  his  hostile 
brothers,  the  tree  grew  higher  and  higher,  and  became  of  such  circumference  that 
Qat  could  not  have  got  down  again,  had  not  Marawa,  seeing  his  friend's  difficulty, 
blown  to  earth  a  thread,  or  a  hair  from  his  head.  Here  we  have  the  sun  ;  and 
the  tree  of  heaven  is  the  same  as  that  by  way  of  whose  top,  in  another  story, 
the  whole  group  of  Tongaros  saved  themselves  from  a  hostile  spirit.^ 

Islands  where  volcanic  eruptions  and  earthquakes  are  common  must  be  just 
the  places  for  myths  to  weave  themselves  in  abundance  about  the  force  of  the 
hidden  fire.  To  this  a  life-generating  effect  was  ascribed  in  the  Marquesas  ;  and 
corresponding  veneration  was  paid  to  Maui  as  creator  of  the  world.  After 
Nukahiva  was  raised  up  from  the  nether  world  by  divine  force,  a  woman  gave 
birth  to  the  sea  as  well  as  to  the  germs  of  beasts  and  plants  ;  while  men  and 
fish,  who  were  enclosed  in  caverns,  were  ejected  by  a  volcanic  explosion.  The 
fusion  of  fire  below  and  above  the  earth  into  a  single  god  of  earthquake,  fire,  and 
sun,  is  not  far  off,  when  the  theogonic  position  is  so  lofty  ;  the  ever-varying  and 
mobile  nature  of  fire,  of  heat,  opens  an  immeasurable  field  to  fancy.  Maui,  the 
Hawaiian  Prometheus,  who  fetches  fire  from  the  sun,  is  in  Samoa  the  earthquake- 
god  as  well ;  in  Raiatea,  the  creator  of  the  sun  ;  in  the  Marquesas,  of  everything 
that  has  life.  So,  too,  a  reason  for  his  lofty  position  is  offered  by  the  separation 
which  the  Maoris  make  between  Ru,  their  god  of  earthquakes,  and  volcanic  fire, 
and  the  fire-god,  Manika,  who  dwells  in  all  living  things.  Here  Maui  is  the 
fire-bringer  and  the  animator.  Around  him  is  spun  a  network  of  legends  of 
Promethean  and  Titanic  character.  The  word  maui  means  "  broken,"  "  beaten  "  ; 
when  Maui  fetched  the  fire,  one  of  his  arms  was  struck  or  twisted  off  by  the 
earthquake-god,  Tati.  This  occurs  in  the  most  various  versions.  His  brothers, 
multiplied  Mauis,  appeared  in  a  twofold  form,  as  demigods  and  inhabitants  of 

'  [The  Tongaros  are  Qat's  brothers.     Marawa  is  occasionally  a  spider.] 


314  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

earth.  But  the  fire-bringing  was  Maui's  performance,  of  which  legend  specially 
loved  to  treat.  After  he  had  obtained  the  fire  by  means  of  red-feathered  birds, 
he  completed  his  Promethean  career  by  overcoming  his  father  Kane,  whom  evil 
spirits  had  set  at  enmity  with  him,  and  Kane's  brother,  Kanaloa,  in  a  riddle- 
guessing  contest,  attacking  them,  and  vanquishing  a  whole  host  of  spirits  besides. 
Kane  and  Kanaloa  fled  from  the  temple  and  went  aloft  ;  but  Maui,  as  he  was 
about  to  follow,  suddenly  felt  himself  struck  in  the  breast  by  a  missile.  There- 
upon he  lost  all  his  supernatural  power,  and  soon  after  died  of  sickness  like  a 
mortal  man.  What  a  sheaf  of  universally  current  thoughts  and  images  have  we 
here  !  In  the  Society  Islands  Maui  is  brought  otherwise  into  connection  with 
the  sun.  He  is  there  made  to  be  the  priest,  who,  wishing  to  finish  divine  service, 
caught  the  hurrying  sun  by  its  rays.  In  Hawaii,  when  the  sun  had  taken  refuge 
in  Tahiti,  he  brought  it  back,  and  cut  off  one  of  its  legs  to  make  it  move  slower 
and  dry  his  mother's  washing.  Lastly,  we  even  find  him  as  a  god  akin  to 
Proserpine,  for  whose  return  from  the  underworld  prayers  were  offered  every  year 
at  the  harvest-festival  in  Nukahiva. 

Fire  was  everywhere  brought  to  earth  against  the  wish  of  the  gods.  In  Ulea 
a  god  who  has  been  pushed  out  of  heaven  obtains  it  by  threats  from  an  old 
woman,  Mafuike,  and  brings  it  to  Fakaafo,  where  till  then  the  food  had  been 
eaten  raw.  Since  then  fire,  as  being  sacred  to  the  god  of  day,  may  only  be 
lighted  at  night  for  fishing  purposes  or  at  confinements.  In  Tokelau  and  Pelew 
the  legends  commemorate  the  making  of  fire  by  rubbing  two  pieces  of  wood. 

To  this  series  of  great  Polynesian  gods  belongs  Tane  or  Kane,  who  stands 
in  the  closest  relationship  with  Kongo,  Rangi,  or  Ru,  the  heaven,  or  bearer  of 
heaven.  After  earth  and  heaven  were  sundered,  Tane  adorned  the  heaven  with 
stars,  and  set  up  the  deformed  among  his  children  on  earth  as  trees.  He  appears 
thus  as  assistant  and  finisher  in  the  work  of  creation.  Another  legend  represents 
him  as  the  maker  of  the  first  man,  or  of  the  beings  who  preceded.  A  yet  more 
essential  function  in  the  Maori  legend  is  that  in  fulfilment  of  which  he  discharges 
the  important  duty  of  separating  his  parents,  Rangi  (heaven)  and  Papa  (earth), 
and  raising  the  former  aloft.  When  after  this  he  went  up  to  heaven  to  seek  a 
wife,  he  found  that  there  was  only  one  woman  there,  and  his  father  Rangi  advised 
him  to  go  back  to  his  mother.  From  her  hip  he  formed  his  wife  Hine,  on  whom 
he  begat  a  daughter.  Recognising  her  father  in  Tane,  this  daughter  fled,  ashamed, 
to  his  brother,  and  in  her  anger  with  Tane  transformed  herself  into  the  Titaness 
Hineanitepo  (night),  while  Tane  remained  on  earth.  While  Tane  was  searching 
everywhere  for  his  daughter,  he  found  his  brother  Rehua,  the  all-quickening  fire, 
in  the  tenth  or  highest  heaven.  This  visit  to  the  fire  seems  to  connect  Tane 
with  the  Promethean  Titan  Maui,  especially  as  he  also  sought  the  water  of  life 
as  a  protection  against  Maru,  and  is  reckoned  the  father  of  birds  ;  two  features 
which  he  has  in  common  also  with  Tangaroa.  In  Tahiti,  Rehua  was  a  real  star- 
god,  the  star  of  the  New  Year,  who  produced  the  Twins  as  well  as  the  Pleiads, 
and  is  considered  lord  of  the  year.  The  morning  star,  the  guide  of  shipmen,  is 
the  son  of  Heaven,  while  the  evening  star  was  designated  as  the  son  of  the  Sun, 
falling  stars  as  Atuas,  and  the  Twins  as  sons  of  men,  who  in  their  fear  of  being 
separated  made  their  escape  to  heaven. 

Closely  bound  up  with  their  tangled  structure  of  mythologic  notions,  yet 
forming  a  world  of  themselves,  are   the   Polynesian   conceptions  of  a  hereafter  ;  a 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA  315 


somewhat  ennobled  reflection  of  the  life  on  earth,  and  yet  much  nearer  to  the 
present  world  than  to  that  of  the  gods.  It  is  only  the  lord  of  the  underworld 
who  comes  into  the  same  line  of  reverence  with  them.  He  is  Ikuleo,  or  Hikuleo, 
Maui's  younger  brother,  lord  of  Bolotu,  the  nobles'  heaven,  and  god  and  guide  of 
their  souls.  Near  his  palace  bubbles  up  the  fountain  of  the  water  of  life,  which 
awakes  the  souls  of  departed  princes  to  renewed  youth,  quickens  the  dead,  heals 
the  sick.  Or  he  dwells  in  a  cave  on  Bolotu,  unable  to  go  further  from  it  than  the 
length  of  his  own  tail,  which  has  grown  into  the  ground.  Here  he  carouses  with 
his  wives  and  children,  compelling  the  souls  of  chiefs  and  Matabulus  to  wait  on 
him.  A  thirst  after  souls  is  one  of  his  chief  characteristics,  but  an  emigration 
led  by  Tangaroa's  sons  carried  off  some  of  his  subjects,  and  he  endeavoured 
accordingly,  by  summoning  the  ghosts  of  chiefs,  to  attract  them  back  from  Tonga. 
He  had  a  special  fancy  for  the  first-born  of  the  noblest  families  ;  and  once  such 
a  mortality  took  place  among  these  that  Hikuleo  had  to  be  chained  up  in  the 
earth  by  Maui,  and  in  heaven  by  Tangaroa.  He  appears  in  Samoa,  as  Siuleo, 
at  the  head  of  the  fighting  men,  whom  he  leads  to  victory  if  he  is  disposed  to 
accept  their  sacrifices  favourably.  In  Hawaii  we  know  him  as  Milu  and  Wakea, 
two  aspects  of  the  same  ideal.  From  the  legends  told  here  of  him  and  his 
attendant  shades  we  may  form  a  sort  of  mosaic  picture  of  the  Polynesian  Hades 
and  Paradise.  Milu's  kingdom  in  the  lower  world  will  last  for  ever,  and  has 
existed  from  the  beginning ;  but  persons  apparently  dead  have  brought  back 
intelligence  of  it,  as  the  Hawaiian  legend  related  on  p.  41.  It  is  level  and  fertile, 
also  fairly  light  ;  everything  grows  of  itself  there.  In  Milu's  palace  court  are 
facilities  for  enjoyment  of  every  kind.  The  best-looking  women  who  arrive  are 
selected  by  Milu  for  himself,  and  are  then  tabooed  to  the  other  Akuas.  Another 
ruler  of  the  underworld  is  Wakea  ;  his  kingdom  was  founded  later  than  Milu's. 
Each  kingdom  is  tabooed,  and  no  one  can  go  from  one  to  the  other.  Before  Wakea 
became  a  god,  he  was  a  sovereign  on  earth;  Milu  was  also  a  man,  but  not  so 
good.  Down  below  Wakea  rules  over  the  higher  souls,  Milu  over  the  lower. 
Departed  souls  are  borne  away  in  the  direction  of  the  setting  sun,  to  Kane's 
islands.  There  they  either  leap  from  a  rock  into  the  sea,  or  disappear  through 
a  hole  in  the  ground.  A  place  in  Oahu,  near  the  West  Cape,  has  been  said  to 
be  the  spot  ;  probably  with  a  reminiscence  of  the  similarly  situated  sacred  spot 
in  Pelew.  But  the  souls  do  not  come  at  once  into  the  next  world  ;  they  wander 
some  time  on  the  frontier,  and  if  they  are  only  apparently  dead  can  return  to 
the  upper  world.  For  this  reason  the  recently  departed  soul  is  an  object  of  fear, 
since  its  semi-corporeal  apparition  is  enough  to  frighten  one  into  madness.  In 
Milu's  kingdom  the  souls  amuse  themselves  with  noisy  games  ;  in  Wakea's  a 
solemn  peace  reigns.  The  place  where  the  wicked  are  tormented,  which  is 
represented  as  the  night  of  the  everlasting  death,  and  as  a  dark  deep  place  at 
the  back  of  the  heaven  where  the  stars  are  hung,  may  well  have  been  imported 
from  some  foreign  school  of  thought. 

In  Hawaii,  legends  of  a  fire-goddess,  Pele,  belonging  to  the  nether  world, 
were  called  forth  by  the  mighty  scale  of  the  volcanic  phenomena,  and  grew  into 
a  cycle  of  myths  in  harmony  with  the  Hades-legends.  Superficial  observers, 
regarding  her  as  the  most  powerful  of  all  the  gods,  ascribed  to  her  not  only  the 
volcanic  fire,  but  also  the  Hawaiian  deluge.  When  Pele  started  upon  her  journey 
to    Hawaii,  which  in  those  days  was  a  monstrous  desert  waste,  with  the  same 


3i6  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

mountains  as  now,  but  with  no  fresh  water,  even  no  sea,  her  parents  gave  her 
the  sea  to  carry  her  boat.  While  she  was  sailing  to  Hawaii,  the  flood  rose  till 
only  the  highest  mountain-tops  were  visible ;  but  the  sea  shortly  went  down  again 
till  it  reached  its  present  level.  Pele,  with  her  terrible  brethren,  the  lord  of 
steam,  the  lightning,  the  thunderer,  the  fire-spitter,  the  boat-smasher  with  fiery 
eyes,  the  sky-splitter  (a  sister),  and  the  rest,  retired  to  the  mountains.  In  the 
roar  of  the  lava-waves  the  Kanaka  hears  their  voices.  Pele  often  changed  her 
quarters  ;  driven  out  by  the  sea-god  Moana,  she  now  dwells  in  Kilauea,  the  only 
volcano  of  the  group  that  is  at  present  active.  Even  after  the  conversion  of  the 
islanders  to  Christianity  the  crater  of  Kilauea  long  remained  under  strict  taboo. 
Even  in  the  most  recent  times  strangers  have  noticed  their  native  guides,  with 
bared  heads,  throwing  into  the  lake  of  fire  little  offerings  like  glass  beads,  coral, 
shells,  etc.,  with  the  salutation  AloJia  Pele  !  while  the  hair-like  threads  of  glass, 
"  Pele's  hair,"  which  are  found  only  in  the  crater  of  Kilauea,  may  serve  as  a 
memento  of  the  once  mighty  goddess. 

The  fancy  of  the  Melanesians  did  not  soar  to  such  grand  achievements  in  the 
decoration  of  their  Elysian  fields  ;  but  it  furnished  the  road  thither  with  many 
and  various  obstacles.  The  Fijian  name  Mbulu  points  to  the  Tongan  Bolotu ; 
and  even  the  Hawaiian  ball-game  is  reproduced  in  New  Caledonia  as  a  game 
played  with  oranges  by  the  souls  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  The  first  thing  on 
the  road  to  Hades  is  a  city  through  all  the  houses  of  which  the  souls  roam,  for 
which  reason  the  doors  all  open  the  same  way.  Then  they  have  to  pass  in  front 
of  a  giant,  who  tries  to  get  them  all  with  his  great  stone  axe.  Those  who  are 
wounded  have  to  haunt  the  mountains  as  ghosts  for  ever  ;  those  who  escape  the 
giant,  after  being  acquitted  by  Ndengei,  get  permission  to  enjoy  the  odour  of  the 
human  sacrifices.  Souls  of  unmarried  men  come  off  worst.  Nangga-Nangga  lies 
in  wait  for  them,  and  as  soon  as  he  has  caught  them,  heaves  them  up  in  both 
hands  and  throws  them  down  upon  a  rock,  where  they  are  broken  in  two.  For 
this  cause  it  was  usual  among  the  tribes  in  Fiji  to  strangle  widows,  because  the 
god  regards  male  ghosts,  who  come  without  women,  as  bachelors.  If  the  wife 
is  the  first  to  die,  the  husband  cuts  off"  his  beard,  and  lays  it  under  the  left  armpit 
of  the  corpse  as  proof  of  his  existence.  The  fighter  who  guards  the  entrance  to 
the  next  world  is  met  with  elsewhere  in  Melanesia.  In  the  Hades  of  the  Vate 
Islanders  Salatau  tries  to  hit  those  who  enter  on  the  head  with  a  club.  No 
doubt  it  is  the  same  spirit  who  in  Fiji,  under  the  name  of  Samujal  or  Suma,  and 
Ravujalo,  lies  in  wait  for  souls  to  eat  them  with  his  brothers.  The  souls  of 
common  people  succumb,  those  of  nobles  get  to  Mbulu.  These  go  to  the  upper 
part  of  a  mountain,  and  find  at  the  top  of  a  precipice  a  father  and  a  son  with  a 
paddle  in  their  hands.  If  they  question  them,  they  are  thrown  over,  and  have  to  reach 
the  next  world  by  swimming.  Why  the  paddle,  if  the  souls  have  to  swim  after  all  ? 
The  meaning  of  the  ferryman  of  souls  has  been  forgotten  ;  though  it  is  not  so 
in  Fiji,  where  the  souls'  places  of  embarkation  lie  to  the  north-west,  and  where 
it  is  believed  that  the  rustle  of  the  west  wind  can  be  heard  all  the  way  from 
Galongalo,  the  place  of  the  swimming.  After  the  death  of  their  king  the  three 
eldest  men  of  the  tribe  go  with  cloths  in  their  hands  to  the  bank  of  the  river  to 
escort  the  soul.  There  they  call  aloud  for  the  ferryman,  and  wait  till  they  see 
an  extra  large  wave  roll  in  upon  the  shore,  the  token  of  the  invisible  canoe. 
Immediately  they  turn   away  their   faces,  and   cry  :   "  Go   on   board,  lord."      Then 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA  31? 


they  hasten  thence  with  all  speed,  for  no  living  eye  may  look  on  the  embarkation. 
The  corpse  is  buried  in  the  usual  way. 

Souls  which  are  excluded  from  the  next  world,  either  perish  or  come  back 
to  wander  restlessly  about  the  earth,  like  those  who  were  wounded  in  the  fight 
mentioned  above.  The  same  fate  awaits  those  who  cannot  hit  the  tree  of 
Takivelajawa  with  the  whale-tooth  that  is  buried  with  them  for  the  purpose,  and 
according  to  Fijian  legend,  untattooed  women  also,  and  avaricious  people.  This 
dangerous  way  of  souls  is  moreover  divided  into  stations,  at  each  of  which  the 
soul  dies  once  again.  In  the  belief  of  the  Solomon  Islanders,  the  avaricious,  mur- 
derers, and  other  sinners  undergo  a  purification  by  being  turned  into  ugly  rep- 
tiles, snakes,  toads,  and  the  like.  Similar  traces  of  dim  notions  about  future 
rewards  and  punishments  are  to  be  found  everywhere.  But  it  was  certainly  no 
original  conception  of  the  Fijians  that  souls  have  to  come  before  Ndengei's 
judgment  seat. 

Usually  souls  go  with  the  sun  into  the  ocean,  to  reach  the  next  world  at  his 
rising  on  the  following  day.  This  is  why  the  promontories  whence  they  venture 
their  leap  into  the  darkness,  lie  on  the  west  of  the  islands. 

Where  two  souls  were  distinguished  in  every  man  and  every  object,  as  was 
the  case  among  the  Fijians,  namely  the  shadow  and  the  reflection,  it  is  the  dark 
one  only  that  goes  to  the  lower  world,  while  that  which  is  compared  to  a  reflec- 
tion remains  about  the  grave  ;  in  this  way  the  return  of  the  dead  in  dreams  is 
explained.  Another  conception  sets  a  limit  to  the  soul  even  in  the  next  world, 
since  it  makes  annihilation  follow  upon  the  highest  stage  of  the  life  in  Mbulu. 
But  this  annihilation  is  personified,  and  in  another  tradition  assumes  the  character 
of  the  chief  of  the  souls  in  Mbulu,  who  is  thus  probably  conceived  as  a  soul-eating 
god.  Others,  however,  make  the  souls  remain  in  their  place  until  the  earth  has 
been  destroyed  by  fire  and  renewed. 

The  Melanesian  doctrine  of  ghosts  and  gods  is  in  its  main  features  very  like 
the  Polynesian.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  foundation  of  Melanesian 
mythology  is  woven  of  Polynesian  threads  ;  only  peculiar  features  are  woven  in, 
and  often  rest  upon  a  weakening-down  of  threads  and  colours  already  in  existence. 
Considering  the  great  variety  of  gods  in  the  oceanic  regions,  little  importance 
can  be  assigned  to  the  pre-eminence  of  any  one.  Name  and  dignity  of  the 
supreme  god  change  from  one  island  to  another.  It  is  only  in  the  tales  of  the 
creation  and  of  the  nether  world  that  more  stability  is  to  be  observed.  In  Fiji 
the  recognised  chief  of  all  gods  and  men  is  Dengeh,  Tengei,  or  Ndengei.  He  is 
said  to  have  at  first  moved  about  freely,  but  then  in  the  form  of  a  snake  to  have 
grown  into  the  earth  with  his  ringed  tail.  In  that  he  resembles  the  Tongan  lord 
of  the  place  of  spirits  and  Dianua  the  lord  of  spirits  in  New  Caledonia.  Since 
then  he  has  become  the  god  of  earthquakes,  storms,  and  the  seasons.  They  say 
that  whenever  Ndengei  shakes  himself  fertilising  rain  will  fall,  delicious  fruits  hang 
on  the  trees,  and  the  yam  fields  yield  an  excellent  crop.  But  Ndengei  is  also  a 
god  of  wrath  who  declares  himself  in  terrible  fashion.  He  punishes  and  chastens 
his  people,  now  by  destroying  the  crops,  now  by  floods  ;  he  could  indeed  easily 
wipe  out  mankind  from  the  earth,  for  since  he  has  lived  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth 
he  has  been  tormented  with  so  insatiable  hunger  that  he  would  like  to  take 
in  and  swallow  the  whole  world.  The  gods  in  Fiji  fall  into  different  classes 
according  to -the  degree  of  their  relationship  to  Ndengei.     As  in  Polynesia,  people 


3if 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


speak  of  the  divine  family — father,  son,  and  daughter.  Mautu-Maui,  Ndengei's 
assistant  in  creation,  is  called  the  "  bread  fruit "  and  "  the  son  of  the  supreme  god." 
Ndengei  has  several  sons  besides  who  receive  prayers  on  his  account ;  his  grand- 
children are  territorial  gods,  his  distant  relations  subordinate  tribal  gods.  Among 
them  are  symbolisations  of  properties  or  endowments,  reminding  one  in  their 
crude  luxuriance  of  India ;  mechanical  dexterity  with  eight  arms,  wisdom 
with  eight  eyes,  Waluwakatini  with  eighty  stomachs.  The  two  ferrymen  of 
souls  also,  and  Rokomutu,  born  from  his  elbow,  are  mentioned  as  Ndengd's 
children,  for  whom  the  legend  of  creation  and  the  deluge  offer  the  more  obvious 
foundation. 

Men  were  made  of  stones  or  earth  by  the  creator  god  and  his  attendants,  or 


Sacred  place  in  Dorey,  New  Guinea,      (After  Raffray. ) 


else  they  are  simply  the  successors  of  the  gods  themselves,  and  of  them  a  woman 
always  appears  first  and  then  a  man,  from  whose  union  the  remaining  heavenly 
and  earthly  beings  come  into  existence.  In  the  Banks  Island,  Qat  forms  a  being 
by  weaving  supple  twigs,  and  suddenly  becomes  aware  by  its  smile  that  he  has 
produced  a  woman.  Where  Ndengei  appears  as  the  creator  of  men,  his  son 
Mautu  ( =  Maui)  is  beside  him  as  assistant.  He  made  the  first  human  pair  from 
the  eggs  of  the  snipe,  Kitu  ;  his  son  developed  them  further  till  they  were  capable 
of  reproduction.  In  Micronesia,  also,  the  creation  of  man  took  place  from 
inanimate  stone,  unless  he  was  immediately  connected  with  the  gods  by  a  fall  due 
to  sin.  In  Fakaafo,  the  first  man,  having  proceeded  from  stone,  made  the  arms 
and  legs  of  his  consort,  Ivi,  from  clay,  and  enclosed  one  of  his  own  ribs  in  her 
body,  and  from  them  all  other  men  sprang.  In  Pelew  the  divine  couple,  Irakaderngel 
and  Ejluajngadassakor,  created  mankind,  he  producing  the  men,  she  the  women. 
The  modest  creatrix  hesitated  to  show  her  work,  while  the  creator  let  his  be  seen 
freely.      Since  then  all  women  wear  a  skirt  of  pandanus  leaves,  while  the  men  go 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA  319 


naked.  The  want  of  mental  harmony  prevailing  between  the  two  sexes  is  also 
referred  back  to  this  early  time,  for  as  the  creating  couple  kept  laying  their  creations 
pair  by  pair  together  on  one  side,  it  befell  that  many  did  not  suit  each  other  and 
disagreed.  The  first  created  beings  were  moreover  pure  Kalits,  giants  in  body 
and  strength,  and  rich  in  capacities  which  are  lacking  to  the  men  of  to-day.  The 
inhabitants  of  Ascension  consider  that  the  stone  monuments  of  their  islands  were 
built  by  these. 

From  among  the  gods  of  the  second  rank  the  god  of  war  most  frequently 
takes  his  place  beside  the  highest  and  the  oldest,  although  the  character  of  a  hero 
is  clearly  stamped  upon  him.  His  variations,  also,  are  remarkable ;  in  Samoa, 
Meru  appears  as  the  god  of  thunder  and  lightning,  and  passes  into  the  war  god 
Meso,  or  Moso,  who  again  reminds  us  of  the  Tahitian  Oro.  Although  in  later 
times  he  was  worshipped  in  the  place  of  Maui  as  the  finisher  of  creation,  he  is 
nevertheless  human  in  his  origin.  In  New  Zealand  Maru  sends  the  rain  and 
earthquakes  also,  he  is  recognised  in  the  red  planet  Mars,  and  worshipped  in  the 
South  Island  as  god  of  war  to  whom  the  slain  are  offered  as  sacrifices.  Next  to 
him  the  gods  of  the  field  and  the  harvest  had  the  chief  practical  importance.  Some 
of  their  attributes  could  be  transferred  to  Tangaroa,  Tu,  or  Tane,  and  worshipped 
with  and  in  these.  There  were  propitious  and  mischievous  gods  ;  in  Tonga  one 
was  worshipped  at  the  time  of  planting  and  the  time  of  harvest,  another  was 
prayed  to  at  the  irrigation  of  the  fields.  But  the  goddess  of  the  wind  overthrew 
the  plantations  if  she  was  not  duly  honoured.  In  New  Zealand  the  image  of 
Tiki,  the  first  man,  was  venerated  at  the  time  of  harvest. 

In  conclusion,  let  us  draw  attention  to  one  of  the  host  of  heroes.  A  mighty 
figure  meets  us  in  Tawahaki,  patriarch  of  the  Maoris,  whose  acts  were  so  illustrious 
that  a  daughter  of  heaven  was  willing  to  be  his  wife.  After  the  birth  of  a  child 
she  fled  back  to  heaven,  and  Tawahaki  climbed  up  after  her  by  a  cobweb.  But 
his  brothers-in-law  wounded  him,  and  in  revenge  he  called  forth  a  flood  ;  or,  as 
one  tradition  has  it,  stamping  in  his  anger,  he  broke  the  crystal  covering  of  heaven, 
and  the  flood  burst  out.  In  the  other  legend,  the  hero,  having  been  healed  of  his 
wounds  by  his  wife  Hirepiripiri,  prayed  that  the  flood  might  descend  and 
annihilate  his  foes.  Since  that  time  Tawahaki  has  been  propitiated  at  funerals 
as  the  conductor  who  brings  the  souls  of  dead  chiefs  from  earth  to  heaven.  We 
meet  with  earth-stampers  also  in  Tonga.  Huanaki  and  Fao  swam  from  Tonga 
to  Niue,  stamped  on  the  island  to  make  it  rise  higher,  and  by  a  second  stamp 
called  forth  the  plants  from  which  the  first  human  pair  sprang. 

The  condescension  of  female  dwellers  in  heaven  to  earth-born  heroes  recurs  in 
another  form  in  many  Polynesian  legends.  The  daughters  of  Langi,  the  lord  of 
heaven,  feeling  lonely  in  their  empty  house,  made  ready  to  set  off  and  satisfy 
their  curiosity  by  a  nearer  look  at  the  folks  below  on  the  earth.  Just  then  the 
sons  of  the  prince  were  gathered  at  a  festive  kava-ArrvcC^uvg  when  the  goddesses 
drew  near,  and  soon  by  the  charm  of  their  beauty  kindled  a  bloody  quarrel.  The 
fearful  uproar  was  heard  in  Bolotu,  terrifying  the  gods  in  their  assembly-hall ;  and 
Langi  hastened  with  all  speed  to  punish  the  disturbers  of  the  peace.  But  the 
eldest  daughter  had  already,  in  the  wild  hurly-burly,  been  torn  to  pieces  by  the 
infuriated  rivals,  and  the  enraged  father  himself  struck  off  the  head  of  the  youngest. 
This  was  hurled  into  the  sea  and  became  a  tortoise  ;  an  animal  which,  since  that, 
chiefs  are  forbidden  to  eat. 


320  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

The  legend  of  the  Fall,  by  which  men,  once  godlike,  became  mortal,  recurs  in 
varying  forms  all  over  the  world.  Formerly  an  old  man  merely  stripped  off  his  old 
skin  and  appeared  again  in  a  new  and  rejuvenated  form  ;  but  in  the  Solomon  and 
Banks  Islands  all  men  became  mortal  in  the  following  manner.  An  old  woman 
threw  her  skin,  in  the  usual  way,  into  the  water,  but  it  caught  and  hung  in  a  pro- 
jecting bush.  With  her  youth  renewed  the  mother  returned  home.  But  as  her 
children  declined  to  recognise  her,  the  old  skin  had  to  be  looked  for,  whether  or 
no,  and  put  on  again.  Since  then  every  one  has  died.  In  Lifu,  death  came  into 
the  world  with  the  islanders'  best  fruit,  the  yam.  The  sons  of  the  first  man  had  been 
turned  into  animals,  and  one  of  them,  the  rat,  brought  up  to  the  surface,  through 
a  hole,  a  yam-root  from  the  plantations  of  an  old  gentleman  residing  at  the  centre 
of  the  earth.  This  was  planted,  and  then  men  began  to  die,  their  lives  being 
required  in  compensation  for  the  stolen  provisions.  We  are  reminded  also  of  the 
Fall,  when  the  god  Nobu,  having  created  men,  deserts  Erromango  for  ever.  In 
Vate  they  relate  how  the  inhabitants,  during  the  absence  of  Nugerain,  one  day 
burnt  his  great  store  of  pearl-shells,  and  were  condemned  to  die  as  the  penalty. 

To  the  fall  of  man  corresponds  a  period  of  general  decadence  and  degrada- 
tion among  the  gods,  in  which  the  transformation  of  the  chief  god  into  bestial 
shape  plays  so  important  a  part  that  one  may  see  therein  ■  a  justification  of  the 
apparently  senseless  worship  of  beasts.  In  Fiji  they  relate  how  Ndengei,  looking 
once  upon  a  time  into  a  clear  brook,  was  astonished  to  see  how  ugly  he  was.  For 
•this  cause  he  assumed  the  form  of  a  serpent.  "  If,"  said  he,  "  I  remain  an  ugly 
man,  I  shall  be  despised  ;  but  if  I  am  a  serpent,  every  one  will  fear  and  obey  me." 
The  preference  shown  for  a  beast-idol  probably  is  due  to  a  later  growth,  of  the 
nature  of  a  throwing-back.  The  purer  and  higher  worship  of  a  lord  fell  to  that 
of  a  reptile  ;  fear  took  the  place  of  heroic  courage  and  wisdom.  So  too  the  demi- 
gods are  evidence  of  a  corrupter  age,  which  became  dissatisfied  with  the  old  gods, 
and  sought  others.  In  Fiji  a  chief  betook  himself  one  day  to  the  mountains,  and 
cried  :  "  Who  will  be  my  god  ?  "  No  voice  replied,  and  he  went  down  to  the  sea 
and  repeated  his  cry.  Then  a  serpent  answered  "  I  will  be  thy  god."  The  chief 
was  ready  to  recognise  the  serpent,  and  became  its  priest.  But  even  in  the  serpent 
form  the  worship  was  not  permanent,  for  when  Ndengei,  with  the  end  of  his 
serpent-body  petrified  into  the  foundations  of  the  earth,  had  lain  down  to  sleep  in 
the  cavern  of  Raki-Raki,  he  was  only  visited  by  his  old  servant  Uto  ;  and  as  the 
worshippers  grew  more  and  more  lukewarm,  he  generally  came  with  empty  hands. 

A  Deluge-legend  recurs  in  many  places,  but  unconnected  so  far  as  appears 
with  other  mythologic  conceptions  of  the  same  kind.  Sometimes  the  supreme 
deity  originates  the  flood,  sometimes  heroes  open  the  way  for  it.  The  Ndengei  of 
Fiji  is  also  the  Melanesian  Neptune  ;  and  his  relations  to  Tangaroa  and  Maui, 
the  sovereigns  of  the  sea  and  producers  of  floods,  agree  with  this.  When 
Ndengei,  in  those  days  a  great  chief,  was  dwelling  on  the  seashore,  a  war  with 
Tangaroa  arose.  Then  he  let  the  sea  in  from  the  north  over  all  the  low  country  and 
drowned  the  invader,  while  he  himself  took  refuge  in  the  mountains.  On  another 
occasion  he  flooded  the  whole  country,  because  his  twin  sons  had  killed  his 
favourite  bird,  a  cock  with  beautiful  feathers.  He  lastly  banished  the  twins  to 
the  Reva  district,  where  they  became  the  patron  gods  of  such  as  build  canoes  ; 
and  for  this  reason  ship  carpenters  hold  an  almost  sacred  position,  as  in  Tonga. 
In    the   Pelews   the    Deluge-legend    is    told   as  follows.      The  old  woman  called 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA  321 


Milath,  who  brought  forth  the  four  great  lands,  Hved,  at  an  advanced  age,  in  the 
country  of  Ngareksbukt  in  Ejrraj.  Once  on  a  time  the  people  there  had  killed 
one  of  the  seven  Kalits,  and  his  friends  in  their  course  through  Pelew  came  to 
Milath's  house.  She  invited  them  in  in  friendly  fashion,  and  asked  what  they 
wanted.  The  searchers  explained  that  they  were  the  friends  of  the  missing  man. 
The  old  woman  gave  them  food,  but  also  imparted  the  sad  news  that  he  had  been 
slain  by  the  people  of  her  country.  Then  the  friends  in  their  wrath  decided  to 
destroy  the  whole  land,  with  the  exception  of  Milath,  and  advised  her  accordingly 
to  make  herself  a  raft  of  bamboo.  This  she  was  to  keep  in  readiness  attached  by  a 
long  cable  of  lianas  to  an  anchor  in  front  of  her  house,  and  shortly  before  the  full 
moon  put  much  victuals  on  board  and  sleep  there,  for  a  great  flood  was  coming. 
The  old  woman  did  as  she  was  advised,  and  then  the  water  flooded  all  the  dry 
land  ;  only  the  raft  with  old  Milath  remained  afloat.  But  presently  the  cable  of 
liana  proved  too  short,  and  Milath  was  carried  away  by  the  flood  and  drowned. 
She  drifted  lifeless  against  a  rock,  and  her  hair  got  entangled  in  the  boughs  of  a 
tree,  where  she  was  found  by  her  friends.  According  to  some,  the  body  was 
changed  into  a  stone,  which  is  still  to  be  seen  ;  but  others  say  that  it  was  revivified 
by  a  Kalit  woman  who  took  her  form,  and  that  she  bore  to  the  men  who  had 
taken  part  in  the  search  those  five  children  from  whom  the  population  of  the 
Pelew  Islands  is  descended.  The  Banks  Islanders  tell  a  somewhat  similar  tale. 
Otherwise  these  floods  are  not  always  of  the  nature  of  judgments.  Ndengei 
indeed  causes  one  when  he  turns  round.  Here,  as  everywhere,  legends  of  migra- 
tions are  mixed  up  with  the  floods,  and  thus  even  historical  migrations  of  the 
Pacific  races  connect  themselves  therewith. 

The  service  of  the  gods  is  not  exclusively  the  priests'  affair  ;  but  they  occupy 
a  pre-eminent  position  in  consideration  of  their  holding  intercourse  with  the  highest 
among  the  heavenly  beings,  and  attending  to  their  sanctuaries  and  sacrifices. 
Nothing  is  more  sacred  than  matters  connected  with  the  gods  ;  temples,  idols, 
sacrifices,  feasts,  and  whatever  is  used  thereat,  animals,  trees  where  the  gods  are 
wont  at  times  to  stay,  and  the  like.  In  Tahiti  the  custom  by  which  the  king,  as 
the  most  sacred  member  of  the  community,  entered  the  house  of  a  god  at  its 
dedication  for  the  first  time  unattended,  has  been  transferred  to  Christian  churches. 
Every  man's  immediate  worship  was  paid  to  the  god  of  his  family.  To  this 
family-god  the  father  of  the  household  prays  before  the  fire  at  the  time  of  the 
evening  meal  ;  and  at  family  feasts  the  eldest  offers  the  ava-ho^\  to  the  gods  of 
the  household.  But  the  child  is  dedicated  at  birth  to  the  communal  god  whom 
the  priest  serves.  He  appears  in  the  form  of  an  animal,  whose  movements  the 
priests  interpret  as  omens.  Lastly,  the  priests  serve  the  great  gods  of  the  nation, 
being  themselves  chiefs  or  closely  attached  to  the  chiefs.  Thence  arose  the  state- 
ment, due  to  misunderstanding,  that  private  persons  served  their  gods  in  person, 
chiefs  through  the  priests. 

These  priests  are  in  Tonga  distinguished  by  the  name  "  set  apart,"  since  they 
are  men  with  a  special  kind  of  soul.  Their  posterity  are  regarded  as  similarly 
endowed,  and  thus  the  priesthood  is  always  hereditary  in  a  family  standing  over 
that  of  the  chiefs,  or  the  chiefs  are  themselves  hereditary  priests.  A  certain 
character  oi  Dei  gratia  extends  even  to  the  village  headmen.  In  Samoa  the  fire 
may  not  go  out,  even  at  night,  in  a  chief's  house.  Whoever  would  not  bring  the 
due  first-fruits  to  the  chief  of  his  village  was  overtaken  by  disasters,  for  the  chief 

Y 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


shared  the  taxes  with  the  Aitus.  In  time  of  war  high  chiefs  remain  in  the 
village  to  assist  by  their  prayers  ;  but  on  serious  occasions  the  priest  is  taken  into 
the  battle  to  curse  the  enemy.  In  Hawaii  one  member  at  least  of  a  chief's  family 
received  consecration  to  the  priesthood.  The  priest  is  possessed  by  the  souls  of 
the  dead,  and  his  family  god  is  his  helper.  Beside  this  inspiration  a  great  deal  of 
valuable  traditional  knowledge  belong  to  him,  the  most  important  parts  of  which 
go  back  to  the  very  highest  gods,  and  form  a  source  of  great  influence.  If  a 
priest  can  succeed  in.  getting  possession  of  any  small  portion  of  another  man,  he 
can  by  art-magic  exercise  power  over  him,  so  the  good  and  ill  of  their  fellow-men 
is  in  the  priest's  hands.  For  this  reason  the  chief's  pocket-handkerchief  carrier  in 
Hawaii  is  never  allowed  to  go  far  away.  Relics  of  dead  persons  afforded  the 
most  important  means  of  magic.  In  Mare  a  tuft  of  a  priest's  hair,  his  eyebrows, 
bones,  finger  and  toe-nails  ;  in  New  Caledonia  his  finger-nails  ;  in  Tonga  bone 
figures  in  human  form  ;  in  Samoa  tapa  which  has  been  worn  by  renowned  ancestors, 

are  talismans.  But  the  most  highly- 
valued  article  is  the  skull,  which  is 
prepared,  preserved,  and  venerated  in 
the  most  various  ways.  A  man's 
hair,  nails,  etc.,  slowly  burnt  in  a 
certain  mixture,  react  on  him  so  as 
to  cause  illness  or  even  death.  If  a 
^,     „  .  piece  of  a  dead  man's  bone  is  wrapped 

Love  charm,  from  New  Guinea — one-fifth  real  size.  :  ,    ,    .  ,    .  :  ., 

(Christy  Collection. )  in  leaves  and  laid  m  the  way,  while 

a  verse  is  sung,  the  person  for  whom 
the  magic  is  meant  will  be  visited  with  boils,  eruptions,  and  so  on.  The  Maori 
priests  kill  their  enemy  by  putting  a  stone  for  a  heart  into  his  image.  Beside 
the  priests  there  were  sorcerers  in  New  Zealand,  astrologers  in  Hawaii.  In  the 
latter  country  the  sons  of  Hina,  the  Polynesian  Selene,  were  instructed  in  magic 
by  their  mothers.  Great  value  was  set  upon  knowledge  in  the  priests.  Their 
name  Tohunga,  literally  "  interpreter  of  tokens,"  was  applied  in  New  Zealand  to 
any  person  conspicuous  for  achievements  in  any  line,  whether  canoe-building  or 
spear-making  ;  he  was  a  learned  man.  All  the  tohungas  in  a  New  Zealand  tribe 
regarded  the  most  learned  as  Tino  Tohunga,  the  highest  of  all,  and  he  lived  with 
the  ariki  or  chiefs.  Where  there  were  no  bards,  as  in  the  Marquesas,  the  priests 
were  the  guardians  of  historical  tradition,  as  for  instance  the  Kahunas  of  Hawaii. 
The  social  position  of  the  priests  was  different  in  different  groups.  Out- 
wardly they  were  distinguished  by  their  tattooing  (of  wavy  lines  on  the. forehead, 
among  the  Maoris)  and  their  long  staff.  Priest-kings,  or  ariki,  formed  among 
the  Maoris  the  top  of  the  social  structure.  They  did  not  go  to  war,  but  left  that 
duty  to  a  selected  chief  of  their  kindred.  They  retained  the  power  of  laying  on 
taboo,  even  if  the  chiefship  had  been  transferred  to  another  ;  and  boasted  of  being 
sprung  from  an  older  branch  of  the  common  family  tree.  None  but  the  ariki 
knew  the  sacred  songs.  The  place  where  he  sat  had  to  be  avoided,  or  tabooed, 
and  to  touch  his  hand  was  a  capital  offenj:e.  In  Tonga,  the  eldest  niece  of  the 
Tuitonga  was  a  priest-princess,  ranking  with,  and  in  some  respects  above,  the  prince. 
In  other  cases,  those  who  were  permanently  inspired  were  priests  only,  even  when 
they  were  only  honoured  servants.  Boat-builders,  as  servants  of  Tangaroa,  had 
priestly  privileges  ;  and  in  Oahu  a  chief  was  zX  once  priest,  schoolmaster  fisher- 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA 


323 


man,  and  maker  of  wooden  bowls.  Among  the  Marquesans,  the  atuas  or  god- 
like prophets  were  at  the  head  of  the  tabooed  ranks ;  next  to  them  came 
hereditary  chiefs  ;  then  the  tuas,  who  prophesied  amid  convulsions,  and  after  their 
death  received  sacrifices  as  atuas  ;  the  tohunas  who  offered  sacrifices  in  accordance 
with  tradition  ;  the  ouhous  or  moas,  assistants  of  the  sacrificing  priest ;  the  toas  or 
leaders  in  war ;  and  lastly  the  natikahas,  who  uttered  the  curses.  In  Hawaii, 
also,  the  priest  took  precedence  of  the  prince.  Disputes  about  the  sanctity,  or 
the  privileges  of  the  priests,  have  very  often  occasioned  splits  in  the  tribe  and 
migrations.  Migrations  of  idols  carried  by  the  priests  form  an  interesting  part  of 
the  Polynesian  migration  legend.  In  order  to  maintain 
his  place,  or  rise  higher,  the  priest  had  to  offer  sacrifices 
in  no  small  number.  Among  the  Maoris,' the  tohungas 
lived  in  celibacy,  but  the  chief  priest  of  the  tribe  had  to 
marry  in  order  to  keep  up  the  succession.  Besides  this, 
the  consecrated  tauiras  had  to  fast,  and  lived  apart  from 
the  rest  with  the  priests,  round  the  temple. 

Yap,  Nukuor,  and  other  Micronesian  islands,  have  a 
priest-chief,  and  priests  as  distinct  from  sorcerers.  In- 
visible Kalits  pass  for  oracles  by  a  fraud,  at  the  back  of 
which  are  the  priests.  They  possess  houses  in  a  number 
of  districts,  each  inhabited  by  a  woman  who  is  per- 
manently dedicated  to  them.  Many  obtain  great  in- 
fluence through  intercourse  with  sacred  animals.  Lastly, 
the  taboo-system  contributes  here  also  to  the  creation 
of  limits,  whereby  the  priests  keep  the  power  of  inter- 
fering in  every  relation  of  life.  In  quite  small  tribes,  the 
eldest  person  undertakes  the  management  of  worship, 
while  in  larger  communities  he  has  beside  him  a  priest, 
who  is  doctor,  weather-maker,  and  sorcerer.  He  must 
have  the  faculty  of  going  into  an  ecstatic  state.  Tradi- 
tion is  preserved  in  the  family,  and  in  his  conjuration  the  Article  employed  in  Meianesian 
priest  turns  for  inspiration  first  to  his  ancestors.      If  he      rites,  for  holding  objects  of  use 

^  .  ,1.  1        •       1       1  t  ,.  in    magic — one-half  real    size. 

has  ancestors  m  whom  others  believe,  he  is  doubly  quali-      (Berlin  iviuseum.) 
fied  to  be  priest. 

The  priests  draw  omens  from  the  sky,  from  the  barking  of  dogs,  the  crowing 
of  cocks,  etc.,  or  from  their  own  oracular  implements.  Before  a  war,  the  Maori 
priest  prophesies  by  putting  up  carved  sticks  on  a  sand-heap,  according  to  the 
number  of  the  friendly  and  hostile  tribes,  and  throwing  at  them  with  a  bunch  of 
strings  tied  together ;  the  forecast  is  propitious  if  the  sticks  fall  up  hill.  Before 
any  undertaking,  the  Maori  used  to  deliver  magic  sentences.  Every  chant  has 
its  rhythm,  and  is  divided  into  verses,  so  that  it  may  be  propagated  more  easily 
from  one  generation  to  another.  Other  songs  have  an  expiatory  effect.  The 
mata,  or  vision,  is  a  mirror  of  the  future.  Nightly  visions  are  interpreted  as  the 
soul's  journeys  into  the  spirit  land  ;  and  for  this  reason  dreams  serve  to  prescribe 
tribal  decrees.  In  Hawaii,  the  priest,  when  prophesying,  made  the  symbols  of 
thunder  and  lightning  with  his  stone  axe,  by  way  of  calling  upon  the  god  of  the 
sky  for  aid. 

The  consecration  of  the  priest  took  place  with  great  ceremonies.      In  New 


3-4 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


^ 


( 


% 


Zealand,  where  there  was  a  kind  of  school  of  the 
priests,  the  candidates  stood  under  a  covering  of 
boughs  with  one  foot  in  the  water,  the  other  on 
land.  The  secret  science  of  the  priests  was  im- 
parted to  their  disciples  by  the  head  of  the  records  ; 
this  law  demanded  extraordinary  attention.  A 
single  wrong  word  in  conjurations  might  spoil 
everything,  and  even  be  fatal  to  the  priest.  Com- 
mune and  tribe  were  no  prouder  of  their  god  than 
of  his  tried  and  tested  priest. 

Where  things  are  on  a  small  scale,  the  priest  is 
doctor  as  well  ;  but  where  men  are  assembled  in 
larger  numbers,  as  in  Hawaii,  Tonga,  or  New 
Zealand,  there  is  a  class  of  priests  specially  occu- 
pied with  medical  practice.  One  of  their  chief 
duties  is  to  get  some  information  from  the  deity 
about  the  patient's  illness  ;  to  this  end  the  priest, 
sitting  near  the  sick  man  after  conjurations,  ad- 
dresses inquiries  to  the  deity,  and  receives  his 
answer  in  a  shrieking  voice.  Sicknesses  which 
cannot  be  cured  by  the  priest  are  described  as 
coming  from  forefathers.  In  the  administration  of 
justice,  the  priest's  duty  consists  in  discovering  the 
criminal  by  secret  means.  They  look  for  him  in 
the  water  ;  if  they  cannot  catch  sight  of  him  they 
make  fire  by  rubbing,  and  utter  a  curse  over  it. 
In  this  way  they  endeavour  to  find  those  who  have 
caused  perplexing  cases  of  death  by  magic  arts. 
Most  ordeals  also  are  in  the  hands  of  the  priest ; 
in  Hawaii,  the  suspected  person  must  hold  his 
hands  over  water,  and  the  water  must  not  tremble 
in  the  vessel  while  the  priest  looks  on  him. 

Dances  and  songs  are  indispensable  parts  of 
divine  service,  especially  at  the  feast  of  the  bread- 
fruit gathering.  In  this  either  they  use  dancing 
staves,  or  the  operation  consists  only  of  harmonious 
movements  of  the  arms  and  legs.  Semper  heard 
of  loose  dances  practised  by  the  women  of  Pelew, 
it  was  said  on  moonlight  nights,  in  honour  of  a 
female  deity,  but  he  was  kept  in  the  dark  on  the 
subject.  Dances  are  held  to  the  accompaniment 
of  songs  recited  by  girls,  in  honour  of  fortunate 
head  hunters.  On  these  occasions  it  is  usual  to 
paint  the  legs  and  all  the  upper  part  of  the  body 
red,  but  a  good  part  of  the  veneration  of  the  gods 
consists  in  silence.  Gods  who  possess  no  temple, 
must  not  be  disturbed  by  noisy  movement  or  shouting.  When  Rongala 
descends  upon  the  island  of  Fais,  there  must  be  neither  talking  nor  noise.     The 


.X 


Human  figure  of  shells  and  hermit- 
crabs,  used  as  a  temple-ornament  in 
New  Ireland — one-eighth  real  size. 
(Berlin  Museum.) 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA  325 


inhabitants  draw  near  to  the  forest  only  in  festal  garments  and  softly.  Sacred 
places  are  of  many  kinds  ;  one  must  not  always  expect  buildings,  the  whole 
world  is  animate,  and  all  Nature  may  be  regarded  as  a  temple.  Places  are 
sacred  only  by  reason  of  the  spirits  that  are  dwelling  in  them ;  where  the 
conditions  were  simple,  the  priest's  house,  in  which  the  fire  might  never  go 
out,  was  the  locality  for  sacred  transactions  ;  every  grave  is  holy  of  itself,  and 
in  all  these  places  there  was  a  right  of  asylum.  The  soul-worship,  customary 
here,  gave  rise  to  places  of  adoration,  where  in  course  of  time  the  cult  of  other 
spirits  could  also  find  a  footing.  Places  devoted  exclusively  to  the  adoration 
of  the  gods  as  a  rule  existed  more  in  the  eastern  group  of  islands,  but  these 
also  were  originally  only  places  of  burial.  Since,  at  the  death  of  any  eminent 
person,  no  new  burial  place  was  made,  but  the  interment  took  place  in  the 
sanctuary  of  an  ancestor,  the  sanctity  attaching  to  a  place  mounted  up.  Large 
octagonal  stone  buildings  with  steps  were  rare,  and  were  devoted  only  to  the  most 
illustrious  ;  while  in  more  recent  times  they  seemed  to  have  ceased.  More  usually 
rectangular  mounds  of  earth  were  erected,  10  to  14  feet  in  height,  surrounded  at 
the  bottom  with  a  low  wall:  The  level  top  was  often  paved,  and  one  or  more 
pretty  shrines  stood  upon  it,  their  floors  carefully  laid  with  small  pebbles  ;  these 
covered  the  grave.  On  one  of  the  longer  sides,  two  or  three  high  steps  led  to  the 
level  top,  which  was  surrounded  on  the  other  three  sides  with  a  wall  or  a  hedge. 
On  it  stood  altars  resembling  high  platforms,  and  also  images  of  the  gods,  some 
of  which  were  also  usually  fastened  to  the  surrounding  walls.  There  were  single 
houses  for  the  priests,  and  even  sacred  trees.  In  those  times,  too,  the  images  of 
the  chief  gods  were  not  in  the  temples,  only  on  solemn  occasions  they  were 
brought  from  the  priests'  house  into  the  temple  by  sacred  bearers  who  were  not 
allowed  to  carry  on  any  other  occupation.  In  Micronesia,  enclosures  and  buildings 
of  wood  and  stone,  frequently  coinciding  with  burial  places,  serve  as  places  of 
adoration,  called  Marae,  and  Amalau.  Mausolea  of  this  kind  in  the  interior  of 
Rotuma,  consist  of  stone  buildings  like  dolmens  formerly  used  for  graves  ;  they 
are  octagonal  near  Metalanim  in  Ponap6,  made  like  three  boxes,  one  inside 
another,  or  in  cellar-like  excavations  filled  with  bones  ;  there  are  similar  buildings 
in  Ualan.  Other  sacred  stone  erections  take  the  form  of  a  small  step  pyramid, 
ascended  by  a  stair,  and  with  a  summit  crowned  by  an  upright  stone.  In  the 
Pelew  Islands,  the  Kalits  dwell  in  octagonal  wooden  huts,  inside  of  which  a  small 
partition  of  boards  is  set  up,  while  the  priest,  through  whom  the  spirit  speaks  to 
men,  lives  outside.  It  is  just  the  same  in  Fiji,  but  here  the  old  fashion  is  giving 
way  to  modern  times.  Semper  even  saw  Kalits  dwelling  in  simple  huts.  Among 
the  Melanesians,  again,  the  sacred  places  are  graves,  spots  where  the  skull  and 
other  remains  of  ancestors  are  preserved,  and  solitary  places  in  forests  on  the 
shore,-  on  mountain  tops,  in  caves,  which  spirits  like  to  visit.  The  nearest 
approach  to  temples  are  the  common  meeting-houses.  In  the  Solomon  Islands 
these  are  called  sacred  houses — the  name  "  devil's  house  "  is  naturally  the  offspring 
of  European  fancy ;  but  they  are  never  used  exclusively  for  religious  purposes. 

A  far-reaching  influence  was  produced  on  the  life  of  these  races  by  the  fact 
that  they  made  no  special  images  of  their  gods,  but  regarded  them  rather  as 
only  temporarily  embodied  in  arbitrarily  selected  things.  Fetishes  of  this  kind 
were,  however,  not  absolutely  necessary  for  intercourse  with  the  gods.  Prayers 
uttered  in  a  low  tone  with  a  whispering  movement  of  the  lips  were,  as  with  us. 


326  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

directed  up  to  heaven,  and  in  Hawaii  customary  language  drew  a  contrast  between 
the  worship  of  idols  and  speech  addressed  to  invisible  beings.  The  idols  were  only 
reverenced  when  the  god  had  taken  up  his  abode  in  them,  and  the  priest  could 
obtain  this  by  prayer  and  sacrifice.  The  choice  of  objects  was  quite  arbitrary, 
it  might  be  matting  or  wood,  but  only  the  sacred  wood  of  the  tree  Casuarina 
equisetifolia,  and  only  if  this  could  not  be  obtained  that  of  Calophyllum,  Ficus,  or 
Cordia.  Stones  were  employed  very  frequently,  roughly  worked  wood-blocks 
with  a  human  countenance  recognisable  at  a  pinch,  and  frequently  with  the 
sexual  parts  indicated  in  an  exaggerated  degree ;  blocks  of  stone  similarly 
worked,  even  imposing  statues,  as  on  Easter  Island,  and  giant  stone  figures ; 
spirits  of  the  sand  and  of  the  rock  are  the  nearest  approach  to  our  idea  of  an 
idol.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  these  are  often  less  revered  than  some  perfectly 
arbitrary  figure — a  bit  of  wood  bound  round  with  string,  or  a  twig  of  banana 
tied  up  with  coco-nut  fibre.  We  must  not  see  an  "  idol  "  in  every  carved  image ; 
for  figure-carving  is  an  art,  carried  on  con  aniore  and  with  great  ability.  In  the 
stone  figures  we  may  possibly  assume  the  survivals  of  a  former  cult,  holding  a 
closer  relation  to  mythologic  and  historical  conceptions  than  does  that  of  shape- 
less lumps  of  wood.  In  the  west  we  are  obviously  much  nearer  to  the  origin  of 
these  figures.  If  a  Papua  has  died,  his  son  carves  a  figure,  sets  it  up  in  the  house, 
and  calls  upon  it  in  difficulties  ;  when  the  sculptor  himself  dies,  his  son  makes 
an  idol  of  him,  and  throws  away  the  now  useless  grandfather.  In  the  Duke  of 
York  Island  (New  Lauenburg)  have  been  found  double  idols,  supposed  to  repre- 
sent an  ancestral  married  couple.  These  figures  of  souls  conventionalised  can 
easily  pass  into  regular  idols.  The  idols  from  Dorey  in  New  Guinea,  6  to  8 
inches  high,  represent  unquestionably  a  sexless  being,  standing  with  its  arms 
supported  on  an  ornamental  trellis  (as  in  the  cut  on  p.  301).  This  development 
converts  the  domestic  ancestral  figure  into  a  public  institution.  In  the  Solomon 
Islands  crude  carvings  of  this  kind  support  the  roof  of  the  assembly  hall.  In 
the  far-famed  Hawaii  feather  idols,  the  idea  of  the  mythological  bird  (for  instance, 
the  sacred  alae  bird)  lay  no  doubt  originally  at  the  root  of  the  representation. 
In  Tonga  the  patron  god  of  a  tribe  was  symbolised  by  a  folded  mat  with  red 
feathers  ;  in  New  Zealand  red  feathers  were  strewn  about  to  ensure  fertility. 

Idols  were  set  up  in  spots  where  immediate  help  was  expected  from  them. 
Along  the  roads  in  Hawaii  stones  wrapped  in  grass  are  pointed  out  as  local  gods; 
and  on  mountain-paths  sacrifices  were  offered  before  upright  stones  to  avert  a 
fall.  To  this  class  belong  also  the  gods'  footprints  in  stone,  to  which  legends 
have  become  attached  even  in  comparatively  recent  times.  Near  Taupa  in  New 
Zealand  a  chief  left  his  footstep  on  a  rock  ;  and  the  prints  of  a  chief  who  had 
been  slain  by  Kamehameha  were  pointed  out  to  Birgham.  The  temple  precinct 
was  a  recognised  asylum  wherever  social  relations  were  at  all  advanced,  and 
herein  temple  and  grave  coincide.  In  Hawaii,  asylum  might  be  sought  near  the 
grave  of  the  kings,  and  similarly  in  Tonga  a  chiefs  burial  place  was  holy  ground. 
Also  the  capability  of  affording  protection  passed  in  both  cases  from  the  place 
to  the  priest  who  served  it.  In  Ranai  an  asylum  was  formed  diagonally  across 
the  island,  by  a  simple  process.  The  priests  allowed  fugitives  to  pass  under  their 
staves,  which  they  then  crossed  against  the  pursuers. 

Where  the  souls  of  ancestors  held  the  front  place  as  objects  of  veneration, 
sacrifice  and  prayer  were  devoted  to  them  ;  elsewhere  spirits  were  the  objects  of 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA 


327 


these.  But  prayers  of  themselves  reckoned  as  oblations — traditional  forms,  of 
which  the  meaning  had  often  been  long  forgotten,  but  which  had  always  passed 
by  inheritance,  and  were  even  imparted  for  payment  to  the  ignorant.  Interces- 
sory hymns,  well  composed  and  often  very 
long,  were  distinguished  from  short  invoca- 
tions, the  productions  of  the  moment.  They 
were  held  pleasing  to  the  god,  and  even 
replaced  the  sacrifice.  Fison  notices,  with 
regard  to  Fijian  prayers,  that  petitions  to  the 
prejudice  of  an  enemy  as  a  rule  balanced 
those  for  the  suppliant's  own  profit. 

In  funeral  customs  the  main  underlying 
thought  is  the  sacredness  of  the  corpse  by 
reason  of  the  neighbourhood  of  the  soul, 
even  after  its  departure.  But  this  only  holds 
good  for  the  relatives ;  strangers  have  no 
scruple  about  injuring  a  dead  body.  All 
dealings  with  the  soul,  which  has  been  taken 
up  to  the  gods,  are  most  easily  carried  out 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  body.  For  this 
reason,  in  New  Zealand  the  priests  sing  over 
the  body  to  assist  the  passage  of  the  soul 
upwards  at  least  to  the  eighth  heaven  ;  and 
on  the  assumption  that  the  soul  must  be 
invited,  if  not  compelled,  by  prayer  or  magic 
to  leave  the  corpse,  they  stroke  this  with  a 
whisk,  and  shake  it.  Visits  paid  by  souls 
of  living  people  are  often  hindered  by  putting 
on  a  mask,  which  would  cut  off  the  soul's 
return.  Souls  which  neither  remain  united 
with  the  deity,  nor  can  be  propitiated  by 
sacrifices,  roam  about  the  houses  at  night 
as  ghosts.  These  wandering  souls  may  be 
heard  in  the  rustle  of  the  leaves  and  the 
surge  of  the  waves,  or  seen  by  moonlight  as 
white  phantoms.  Souls  of  persons  who  had 
died  at  a  distance  v/ere  enticed  by  spreading 
a  white  cloth,  and  if  a  grasshopper  or  an  ant 
came  to  the  call,  it  was  deemed  that  the  end 
had  been  attained.  Old  age  often  obtained 
reverence  from  a  wish  to  be  on  good  terms 
with  the  soul  which  was  soon  to  depart. 
The  deeper  meaning  of  the  widespread 
custom  of  sending  wives  and  servants  to 
accompany  the  dead  into  eternity,  lay  in  the 
wish  to  give  the  departed  soul  an  escort,  or  to  send  at  least  one  soul  as  protec- 
tion, in  case  it  stood  in  need  thereof  In  this  way  a  mother,  grandmother,  or 
aunt   was    strangled   when    a    child    died,   that    the   infant   soul    might    not  be 


Child-mummy  on  the  bier  used  for  burial,  from 
Torres  Straits — one-sixth  real  size.  (Berlin 
Museum. ) 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


unprotected.  Provision  also  had  to  be  made  for  the  fights  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  take  place  on  the  road  to  Hades.  It  is  only  after  several  days,  when  it 
may  be  assumed  that  the  soul  of  the  corpse  has  bden  turned  into  a  spirit,  that 
the  mourning  begins  ;  its  object  being  even  to  this  day  to  start  the  spirit  upon 
the  road  into  the  next  world,  which  it  is  perhaps  unwilling  to  take.  In  view 
of  the  possibility  of  a  periodic  return,  care  is  taken  to  renew  the  noise  at  stated 
times. 

Great  variety  prevails  in  modes  of  interment.  In  the  west  the  body  is  kept 
at  hand  as  long  as  possible  ;  and  at  least  portions  of  it,  especially  the  skull,  and 
above  all  the  lower  jaw,  are  prepared  for  permanent  conservation.  On  the  Maclay 
coast  of  New  Guinea  the  corpse  has  usually  to  be  dried  before  the  fire  in  the  hut. 
In  other  islands  it  is  hung  up  in  mats  between  the  branches  of  trees  until  the 
soft  parts  have  decayed  away,  after  which  it  is  laid  symmetrically  with  other 
skeletons  in  a  cave  on  the  seashore.  Children's  bodies  are  merely  hung  up  in 
basket  under  the  roof  Burial  within  the  hut  is  customary  in  Fiji.  Among  the 
Motus  of  Port  Moresby  the  only  sign  of  mourning  is  the  incessant  beating  of 
drums  for  three  days.  When  this  is  over,  the  grave  is  dug  in  front  of  the  house, 
the  dead  body  laid  in  a  mat,  and  a  little  hut  built  over  the  grave.  After  a  time 
the  grave  is  opened,  the  corpse  taken  out  and  smeared  on  the  elbows  and  knees 
with  red  ochre,  while  the  widow  smears  herself  with  the  decaying  flesh.  Then 
the  dead  man  is  put  by  again,  and  the  little  sepulchral  house  is  gradually  pulled 
to  pieces,  so  that  no  trace  of  the  grave  is  left.  All  these  proceedings  are 
accompanied  by  carousals. 

In  Tonga  the  corpses  of  eminent  persons  were  washed,  ornamented  and  oiled, 
and  watched  by  women.  At  the  actual  interment  the  relations,  clad  in  torn  mats 
and  wearing  chaplets  of  the  leaves  of  the  2)f-tree,  carried  the  body  into  its  house, 
and  buried  it  there  in  its  clothes,  often  in  a  chest  or  little  boat,  and  its  most 
valuable  possession  with  it.  Then  all,  loudly  singing,  went  to  the  shore,  made 
baskets  of  coco-palm  leaves,  and  poured  white  sand  therein,  with  which  they  filled 
the  upper  part  of  the  grave.  The  men  remained  for  twenty  days  in  lightly 
constructed  huts  near  the  house  of  mourning,  the  women  within,  both  occupied  in 
sacred  offices.  On  the  twentieth  day,  all  went  again  to  the  shore,  fetched  black 
and  white  pebbles  in  newly-made  baskets,  and  paved  the  sepulchral  house  there- 
with. In  Tahiti  the  entrails  were  removed  and  the  cavity  filled  with  cloths  dipped 
in  essential  oils.  The  body  was  then  kept  till  it  fell  to  pieces,  when  the  bones 
were  buried,  and  the  skull  set  up  among  the  family.  In  the  Marquesas,  the 
notables  were  buried  in  the  marais,  in  a  sitting  posture,  with  the  knees  drawn 
up,  and  the  head  pressed  down  between  the  legs,  and  the  hands  passed  under 
the  knees.  Funeral  feasts  were  held,  the  invitations  to  which  were  carried  by 
richly-clothed  messengers. 

There  is  an  immediate  relation  between  the  dignity  of  the  soul  of  a  dead 
person  and  the  treatment  of  his  body.  The  lower  classes  seem  often  to  have 
taken  little  trouble  about  their  dead.  In  Hawaii  a  common  man  buried  his  dead 
in  a  crouching  posture,  wrapped  in  cloth,  in  a  cave  or  in  the  ground  ;  sometimes 
in  a  house.  Food  was  put  beside  him.  In  New  Zealand  the  slaves  were  thinly 
covered  with  earth  ;  or  in  many  cases  thrown  to  the  dogs  or  cast  into  the  sea. 
In  some  districts  it  is  said  to  have  been  usual  to  burn  them.  In  Mangaia  the 
custom  obtained  of  wrapping  the  dead  in  white  stuff  and  throwing  them  into  one 


RELIGION  IN  OCEANIA  2,^9 


of  two  deep  holes,  according  to  their  rank  in  society,  the  entrance  to  the  nether 
world  being  different  for  persons  of  high  degree  and  for  the  common  herd.  But 
in  the  higher  classes  the  corpse  was  generally  mummified,  and  exposed  to  view 
for  a  certain  time  in  the  temple  or  the  dead-house.  For  the  purposes  of  embalm- 
ment the  entrails  were  removed.  In  Hawaii  the  flesh  was  carefully  separated 
from  the  bones  and  burnt ;  while  of  the  bones  themselves  part  were  deposited  in 
the  family  heiau  as  objects  of  divine  honours,  part  distributed  among  friends.  A 
kind  of  embalming  also  took  place  in  Hawaii,  and  was  not  unknown  in  New 
Zealand,  where  burial  customs  most  resembled  those  of  Tahiti.  There  people's 
own  houses  often  served  as  graves,  the  remains  of  the  dead  being  allowed  to  stand 
in  chests  ;  otherwise  they  were  interred.  Children's  bodies  were  also  hung  up  in 
chests  among  the  boughs  of  a  tree.  Indispensable  articles  were  the  kehui — the 
word  means  "  forbidden,"  and  passes  into  "  taboo  "■ — wooden  posts,  painted  red, 
with  carved  faces,  which  stood  round  like  sentinels. 

Only  in  certain  small  outer  islands  were  variations  found.  In  the  Gambier 
Islands  the  mummies  were  laid  out  wrapped  in  mats  and  cloth  tied  up  with 
strings  and  put  away  in  mountain  caverns.  In  Falefa  chiefs  were  preserved  in 
a  hut  or  in  a  cave  laid  upon  a  double  canoe.  In  Mulgrave  the  dead  were  laid 
out  upon  stones  covered  with  coco-palm  leaves  and  afterwards  buried  in  the  family 
vault.  Isolated  cases  of  the  disposal  of  the  body  by  launching  it  out  to  sea  in 
a  canoe  were  obviously  a  variation  of  the  custom  of  placing  a  conveyance  at 
the  disposal  of  the  soul  for  its  journey  into  the  other  world.  In  the  Gilbert 
Islands  a  widow  sleeps  under  the  same  mat  with  the  corpse  of  her  deceased 
husband  until  the  head  drops  off  the  body  ;  the  skull  is  then  cleaned,  and  she 
carries  it  about  with  her  constantly,  as  is  also  done  with  the  skull  of  a  beloved 
child.  This  cult  of  skulls  is  also  found  elsewhere  in  Micronesia.  In  Yap  the 
dead  are  never  buried  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  sea,  the  inhabitants  of  the 
mountains  never  anywhere  but  on  mountain-tops.  Adults  were  placed  in  a  sitting 
position  with  knees  drawn  up,  children  and  young  people  lying  down.  A  curious 
combination  of  land  and  sea  burial  is  found  in  Kusaie  where  the  bones  after 
burial  are  dug  up,  cleaned,  tied  in  a  bundle,  and  sunk  in  the  sea. 

Where  interment  is  usual  the  skull  is  often  separated  from  the  body.  Owing 
to  this  A.  B.  Meyer  was  enabled  to  acquire  many  human  skulls  by  barter,  since 
the  Papuas  did  not  hesitate,  after  exhausting  their  own  store  of  slain  enemies' 
heads,  to  plunder  their  relatives'  graves  ;  yet  they  could  not  at  first  make  up 
their  minds  to  hand  over  the  lower  jaw.  Thus  reverence  for  human  remains  has 
its  limits,  and  yet  these  Papuas  in  West  New  Guinea  always  avoided  handling  the 
skulls. 

Great  differences  also  occur  within  the  much  narrower  limits  of  other  archi- 
pelagos. On  some  islands  in  the  Solomon  group  the  corpse  is  thrown  into  the 
sea  to  swim  away  to  the  beautiful  land  in  the  west  ;  in  Anaiteum  it  is  only  the 
body  of  the  supreme  chief  that  is  interred.  Before  they  are  thrown  into  the  sea 
female  corpses  are  clothed  with  their  girdles,  and  males  have  the  face  painted.  In 
other  islands  the  bodies  are  wrapped  in  mats  and  taken  into  the  mangrove  thickets, 
where  they  are  exposed  to  the  air  until  the  head  can  be  easily  separated  from  the 
trunk.  The  head  is  then  prepared  and  the  rest  buried  in  the  common  burying- 
place.  In  San  Cristoval  and  other  places,  the  dead  are  laid  upon  a  high  stage, 
and  a  trench  is  dug  underneath  to  receive  the  flesh  which  is  sliced  off  by  the 


330  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

mourners  ;  skull  and  finger-bones  are  taken  away  as  heirlooms,  and  a  hut  or 
pjramidal  framework  covered  with  leaves  is  erected  over  the  trench  ;  graves  of 
children  are  strewn  with  flowers. 

While  in  Tanna  the  corpse  is  laid  in  a  boat-shaped  coffin,  in  New  Caledonia 
paddle  and  spear  are  set  up  on  the  graves.  Here  ornaments  are  put  with  the 
body,  but  if  not  the  whole  skull  at  any  rate  the  lower  jaw  is  preserved  as  a  relic, 
and  so  in  New  Ireland,  Duke  of  York's  Island,  and  Vate.  In  the  last-named  island 
trees  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  graves  are  cut  in  a  peculiar  fashion. 

The  outward  indications  of  the  grief  of  the  mourners  go  as  far  as  self-injuries 
and  mutilations.  In  Tonga,  when  the  king's  mother  died  the  chiefs  descended 
from  her  branded  their  temples,  and  at  the  death  of  the  high  priest  it  was  usual  to 
cut  off  a  joint  of  the  little  finger.  The  Tahiti  women  used  as  soon  as  they  were 
married  to  fix  sharks'  teeth  in  a  wooden  handle  with  which  to  wound  themselves 
when  mourning  for  their  husbands.  On  these  occasions  they,  with  their  friends, 
invoked  the  soul  of  the  departed.  In  Tahiti  also,  the  chief  mourner  wore  clothing 
made  of  the  shroud,  while  the  others  went  with  their  clothes  torn  and  sprinkled 
with  dust,  and  the  neighbours  who  came  to  lament  had  a  sham  fight  with  the 
household  of  the  departed  in  order  to  the  due  performance  of  the  common  lamenta- 
tion. Funeral  fights  were  also  held  in  Mangaia,  where  all  the  friends  of  the 
deceased  went  about  the  island  in  strange  clothing  to  attack  the  ghosts  of  other 
districts. 

The  practice  of  burying  alive  is  widely  extended,  it  was  extensively  used  as  a 
means  of  infanticide,  but  old  and  sick  people  sought  of  their  own  free  will  to  be 
buried.  In  the  case  of  new-born  children  a  fire  was  lighted  over  the  grave  to 
stifle  the  soul.  In  Vate,  when  old  people  are  to  be  buried  alive,  a  pig  is  tied  to 
their  arm,  which  is  afterwards  consumed  at  the  feast  and  accompanies  the  soul  into 
the  next  world.  In  the  Fiji  Islands  it  is  also  customary  to  strangle,  and  the  cord 
is  regarded  there  as  a  great  kindness  in  comparison  with  the  club.  If  a  chief  in 
the  Solomon  Islands  dies  his  wives  are  strangled  in  their  sleep  ;  it  would  be  a 
shame  for  them  and  an  insult  to  the  dead  man's  memory  if  they  were  to  marry 
men  ^  of  lower  rank.  The  same  end  is  frequently  allotted  to  the  wives  or  nearest 
relations  of  an  ordinary  man ;  even  in  death  he  must  be  surrounded  by  those  who 
love  him.  In  Anaiteum  the  women  are  said  to  wear  the  ominous  cord  round 
their  necks  from  their  wedding  day. 


South  Australian  Native  Women. 
(From  a  photograph.) 


B.— THE   AUSTRALIANS 


lo.  AUSTRALIA 


Australia,  forming  the  south-eastern  border  of  the  great  mass  of  land  belonging 
to  the  "  old  world,"  looks  south  towards  uninhabited  regions,  east  towards  the 
Pacific  crowded  with  islands,  numerous  indeed  but  forming  collectively  only  a 
small  surface  of  land.  Its  position  reminds  us  of  South  Africa.  Those  sides  of  the 
divisions  of  the  earth  which  look  out  into  vacancy  were  historically  dead  until  a  few 
centuries  ago  oceanic  navigation  brought  to  them  trade  and  colonisation  from  afar. 
Australia,  the  most  insular  of  all  the  quarters  of  the  globe,  has  received  a  larger 
share  than  all  the  others  of  that  culture-stunting  gift — vacant  coasts.  Its  situa- 
tion, open  on  three  sides,  forbids  us  to  doubt  that  in  so  far  as  Australia  has  any 
recognisable  relation  with  other  parts  of  the  earth,  it  can  only  be  with  Asia  and 
the  island  world, — what  little  intercourse  it  had  in  the  pre-European  days,  and 
the  immigration  of  certain  plants  and  animals,  all  point  to  this.  This  justifies 
us  in  claiming  Australia  as  part  of  the  old  world,  which  can  do  no  harm,  especially 
from  an  ethnographic  point  of  view.  With  great  probability  as  regards  its  human 
population,  with  absolute  certainty  in  respect  to  our  modern  culture,  Australia 
may  be  regarded  as  the  most  south-easterly  portion  of  the  old  world,  as  a  depend- 
ency of  Asia.  If  we  consider  ,the  question  of  distances,  the  inhabitants  would, 
without  navigation,  be  confined  to  their  quarter  of  the  earth,  but  with  even  primi- 
tive navigation  they  could  reach  Asia  and  more  immediately  the  eastern  parts  of 
the  Malay  archipelago.  Their  civilization  will  therefore  have  an  isolated  character  ; 
but  where  there  are  deep-lying  connections  with  the  outside  world,  we  shall  have  to 
direct  our  inquiries  towards  Asia. 

■Even  if  Australia  has  more  peninsulas  than  America  and  Africa,  its  coasts  in 
compensation  form  the  most  desert  portions  of  the  land.  Along  the  east  coast  runs 
a  chain  of  mountains,  the  only  marked  watershed  from  the  North  to  the  South  Cape. 
Similarly,  the  moderate  elevations  of  West  Australia  rise  near  the  coast.  A  great 
part  of  the  north  and  north-west  is  a  plain  sloping  up  gently  from  the  sea,  and 
reaching  its  maximum  height  of  1600  to  2000  feet  in  a  distance  of  50  or  60 
geographical  miles.  Rivers  of  similar  fall  flow  down  the  slope,  and  often  in  the 
heavy  tropical  rains  overflow  their  banks  widely.  The  Barcoo,  flowing  along  with 
a  slight  gradient  and  endless  windings,  is  capable  of  watering  a  full  third  of  the 
interior  with  its  tributaries,  that  seldom  have  any  water  in  them.  But  the  South 
Australian  lake  region,  towards  which  it  bears  its  waters,  does  not  rise  very  far 
above  the  level  of  the  sea.  The  characteristics  of  its  desert  shores  are  sand  hills 
between  the  lakes  and  on  their  banks,  stony  flats  resembling  the  sea-shore  and 
soil  impregnated  with  salt.     There  is  only  one  river  system  of  considerable  import- 


334 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


ance,  that  of  the  Murray,  the  sources  of  which  occupy  the  whole  region  on  the 
western  slope  of  the  mountain  range  from  New  South  Wales  to  Queensland. 
In  the  north  and  north-west,  where  there  is  more  rain,  watercourses  are  numerous, 
but  there  is  no  stream.  In  the  west  and  interior,  we  find  no  doubt  plenty  of 
watercourses  on  the  maps,  but  none  in  reality.     They  are    merely  creeks   and 


Eucalyptus  Forest  in  South  Australia.     (From  the  account  of  the  voyage  of  the  '  •  Novara  "). 

water-holes  filled  by  rain  during  a  small  part  of  the  year.  We  shall  see  how 
closely  the  life  of  the  natives  is  bound  up  with  these  transitory  watercourses  and 
springs,  and  how  insecure,  owing  to  this  dependence,  is  their  entire  life.  The  most 
promising  collections  of  water  dry  up  with  extraordinary  rapidity.  The  change- 
able direction  of  the  streams,  even  in  the  larger  river  beds,  makes  the  habitability 
of  wide  districts,  if  no  permanent  precautions  are  taken  for  damming  up  super- 
fluous water  in  the  wet  season,  a  matter  of  uncertainty.      The  rapid  change  from 


A  USTRALIA  335 


wet  to  dry  causes  wide  tracts  to  become  barren  and  desert.  Even  the  lakes  are 
subject  to  this,  and  the  maintenance  of  old  lakes  or  creation  of  new  ones  has 
become  one  of  the  most  prominent  necessities  in  the  cultivation  of  Australia. 
Wide  districts  are  impregnated  with  salt,  an^  perfectly  sweet  water  is  a  rarity. 
"  Good  water,"  says  one  of  the  missionaries  from  Hermansburg,  speaking  of  the 
lower  Barcoo,  "that  is,  understanding  it  in  the  Australian  sense  ;  for  what  at  home 
we  call  bad  water,  passes  here  for  good."  The  abundance  of  salt,  by  limiting  the 
vegetation,  produces  in  the  interior  landscapes  which  resemble  barren  coasts  ;  salt 
lakes  with  islands  consisting  of  sand  dunes  are  among  the  characteristic  features 
of  West  Australian  landscapes. 

The  climate  of  Australia  is  predominantly  dry ;  the  moist  breezes  which  blow 
from  other  zones  upon  the  north  and  south-east  portions,  cannot  prevent  the 
fundamentally  dry  quality  of  the  trade-wind  climate  from  prevailing  over  the 
entire  continent.  If  Africa  was  limited  to  the  region  north  of  a  line  drawn  from 
Cape  Verd  to  Cape  Guardafui,  we  should  have  in  the  northern  hemisphere  the 
counterpart  of  the  climatic  conditions  of  Australia.  On  the  south  coast,  a  climate 
like  that  of  the  Mediterranean  prevails,  with  sharply-defined  dry  and' wet  seasons. 
Between  30°  and  18°  South  latitude  lies  a  band  of  desert  plateau  corresponding 
with  the  Sahara,  while  in  the  north  we  have  the  rainy  season  of  summer  coming 
in  when  the  sun  is  overhead.  While  in  New  Guinea,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Equator,. the  rainy  time  extends  over  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  we  find  in 
Tasmania  rain  at  all  seasons  as  in  Central  Europe.  Thus  there  remains  in  the 
north .  and  south  a  considerable  quantity  of  sufficiently  fertile  land,  and  to  call 
Australia  desert  is  going  too  far  ;  the  effect  of  drought  is  confined  mostly  to  the 
plateau  formation.  But  even  where  the  total  amount  of  water  which  reaches  the 
earth  is, not  absolutely  small,  it  is  often  unfavourably  distributed.  As  we  go  inland 
from  the  well-cultivated  coast,  the  fields  and  pastures  of  the  flourishing  colonies 
of  South  Australia,  Victoria,  and  New  South  Wales,  are  only  too  often  visited  by 
the  most  ruinous  droughts. 

The  very  appearance  of  the  landscape  in  this  region  expresses  dryness.  Dry- 
ness and  stiffness  are  the  distinguishing  marks  of  the  Australian  flora,  even  in  the 
most  favoured  districts  where  lofty  forests  rise  on  the  banks  of  permanent  streams. 
The  flora,  though  considerably  richer  than  in  Europe,  is  more  uniform  and  less 
expressive.  Australia  is  poor  in  forests ;  trees  when  growing  in  masses  have  here 
the  character  less  of  forest  than  of  grove.  The  wooded  grass  country  is  a  posses- 
sion of  Australia  no  less  beautiful  than  useful.  In  the  south-east  and  the  north 
prairies  of  a  considerable  extent  are  found,  and  upon  these  the  most  extensive 
and  most  important  branch  of  Australian  industry  is  maintained.  As  the  country 
becomes  dryer,  the  grass  thins  away  into  isolated  tufts,  and  takes  the  form  of 
steppe,  which  gradually  passes  into  desert  as  barren  rock  appears,  or  as  the  ground 
becomes  impregnated  with  salt.  The  Australian  steppe,  in  its  most  inhospitable 
form,  is  the  scrub  ;  the  region  covered  with  inpenetrable  bushes  where  the  surface 
is  covered  thick  with  a  tangle  of  ericacecz  and  proteacecB,  with  trees  rising  out  of  them 
here  and  there.  The  ordinary  height  of  these  bushy  steppes,  which  cover  many 
square  miles,  is  always  more  considerable  than  that  of  our  heaths.  The  forest 
savannah  has  been  extolled  as  the  blessing  of  the  country,  the  inland  scrub  is  its 
curse.  Leichhardt,  Sturt,  Stewart,  wandered  round  the  scrub  for  weeks,  nay  months, 
without   being  able  to  find  any  way  through  it.      Another  steppe,  overgrown  with 


336 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


the  spinifex,  Festuca  irritans,  affords  a  friendly  and  homelike  picture  of  fields  of  ripe 
corn  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  but  in  reality  belongs  to  the  most  desolate  and 
dangerous  regions,  for  the  grass-like  stalks  are  dry  and  contain  no  nourishment, 
standing  sharp  and  stiff.  If  then  in  estimating  the  capacity  of  Australia  for 
culture,  we  can  call  it  rather  a  great  steppe  country  than  a  waste,  yet  these 
hardly  accessible  plains  must  be  for  a  long  time,  and  notoriously  were  for  the 

aborigines  at  any  time,  a  great 
hindrance   to  movement  and  to 
the  production  of  food.     Where 
the  steppe  thins  away  and  dries 
up  to  a  desert  among  sand  dunes, 
salt,  or  rocky  plains,  its  appear- 
ance is  seldom  so  hopeless  as  in 
the    great    deserts    of    the    old 
world  ;     it    is    hardly    anywhere 
denuded     of      vegetation.       Its 
counterpart  is  to  be  found  in  the 
lesser    Kalahari ;    the    Sahara  is 
incomparably    barer,     but    there 
we  find    not  merely  an  alterna- 
tion  of  rock  plateaus  and  sandy 
plains,  lofty  mountains  and  deep 
depressions,  uninhabitable  regions 
and  groups  of  oases,  but  above 
all    whole     nations,    peoples    of 
various   race   and   speech,  towns, 
villages,  herds,  roads,  trade,  and 
intercourse.         The      Australian 
desert    suffers     from    the    most 
tedious   monotony,   but   has    the 
advantage     over    Sahara    in    its 
more  limited  extent. 

The  wealth  of  Australia  in 
food  products  must  not  be  judged 
from  the  fact  that  no  single  in- 
digenous plant  has  become  an 
object  of  agriculture.  We  do  not 
yet  know  all  its  articles  of  food,  but  some  of  them  are  things  of  which  we  should 
never  have  believed  it  possible  to  make  use.  Of  vegetable  food-stuffs.  Grey 
adduces  for  South  Australia  alone  twenty-one  different  roots,  dwscorece,  orchids, 
ferns,  a  typha,  and  others  ;  four  kinds  of  gum  or  resin,  seven  fungi,  several  fruits ; 
among  them  a  sago  palm,  and  lastly  the  flowers  of  the  Banksia  with  abundance 
of  honey.  In  the  north  the  list  is  larger,  being  materially  enriched  by  others; 
sago  palm,  cabbage  palm,  the  shoots  of  the  mangrove,  which  are  pounded  fer- 
mented, and  eaten  mixed  with  an  indigenous  bean,  the  grain-bearing  marsiliacece, 
the  roots  of  nymphcea,  and  several  fruits.  The  North-west  Australians  know  how 
to  deprive  the  sago  fruit  and  the  orchid  bulbs  of  their  poison.  It  is  true  that  the 
root  of  the  so-called  Australian  yam  is  small,  and  the  eucalyptus  gum  has  not 


Marsilia  Drummondii.. 


PHYSICAL  AND  MENTAL   CHARACTER   OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS       337 

much  nourishment ;  and  we  must  also  admit  that  Australia  is  remarkably  poor  in 
the  plants  which  take  away  something  of  their  natural  poverty  from  other  steppe 
countries,  such  as  the  various  species  of  cucumber,  gourd,  and  melon,  and  the 
various  bulbous  plants.  But  the  fact  that  the  Australians  of  themselves  never 
reached  the  agricultural  stage,  depends  not  so  much  upon  their  flora  as  upon  the 
degree  of  their  civilization.  So  again,  the  fauna  of  Australia  has  not  produced  a 
single  domestic  or  useful  animal.  Those  who  know,  declare  that  the  mammals 
which  would  be  first  in  demand  are  too  wild ;  the  dingo,  which  is  the  only 
Australian  mammal  accessible  to  taming,  was  in  all  probability  imported  tame, 
and  afterwards  ran  wild.  But  with  the  poverty  of  vegetation,  the  fauna  which 
will  live  in  a  wild  state  is  poorly  represented  here.  Significant  also  is  the  rarity 
of  fish  and  other  eatable  aquatic  animals  caused  by  the  deficiency  of  water.  The 
South  Australians  first  learnt  from  Europeans  to  eat  oysters  ;  the  West  Australians 
eat  four  or  five  kinds  of  snakes,  some  poisonous,  and  three  kinds  of  lizards.  The 
grub  of  a  beetle  which  lives  in  the  grass  palm  is  also  much  fancied,  and  birds' 
eggs  are  eagerly  sought.  The  only  parts  where  the  larger  mammals,  especially 
kangaroos,  still  abound,  are  the  broad  grassy  plains  in  the  north  and  north-east. 
The  poverty  of  the  continent  in  animals  has  played  an  important  part  in  the 
exploration  of  Australia,  since  no  expedition  has  been  able  to  depend  for  subsist- 
ence upon  hunting.  Kangaroo  and  emu  hunting  must,  on  account  of  the  swiftness 
of  those  animals,  have  been  extremely  difficult  for  the  Australians,  equipped  as  they 
were  with  inferior  weapons  ;  and  besides  this,  snaring  must  have  been  rendered 
difficult  by  the  nocturnal  habits  of  by  far  the  larger  proportion  of  mammals. 


§   II.  PHYSICAL    AND    MENTAL    CHARACTER    OF    THE 

AUSTRALIANS 

Uniformity  of  bodily  characteristics  throughout  Australia — Mental  distinctions — Malay  and  Negroid  forms — 
Woolly  and  straight  hair — Big  and  little  men — Languages — Character  and  mental  peculiarities — Courage — 
Writing — Language  of  signs — Rock -drawings — Effect  of  nomadism — Instances  of  its  extent. 

The  prominent  characteristic  of  this  continent  is  the  agreement  in  degree  of 
culture,  in  manner  of  life,  in  customs,  to  a  certain  extent  even  in  language,  and 
that  a  greater  agreement  than  we  find  anywhere  else  in  an  equally  limited  area. 
But  physically  too  the  Australians  have  seemed  to  many  modern  anthropologists 
to  be  so  little  separated  that  the  descriptions  which  these  have  given  would  hold 
good  from  the  Murray  to  the  York  peninsula.  It  is  said  that  they  are  men  of 
medium  stature,  not  badly  proportioned  in  themselves,  but  lean  owing  to  bad 
nutrition.  In  their  cast  of  features  may  be  recognised  an  intermediate  stage 
between  Negroes  and  Malays,  what  is  called  a  hybrid  physiognomy.  We  are 
reminded  of  the  Malay  by  the  straight  rather  than  woolly  hair,  the  prominent 
cheek-bones,  the  light  brown  or  reddish  tint  of  the  skin  ;  of  the  Negro  by  the 
prominent  eyebrows,  the  flat  nose,  the  thick  lips,  the  prognathous  jaws.  A 
conspicuous  mark  is  formed  by  the  insertion  of  the  nose,  so  deeply  depressed 
that  a  line  drawn  from  one  eye  to  the  other  describes  only  a  slight  curve.  In 
build  they  are  slim  rather  than  squat ;  almost  all  over  the  continent  it  is  only  in 
well-nourished  individuals  that  arms,  legs,  and  often  hips  are  not  too  fine.     Muscular 

z 


338 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


development  is  not  as  a  rule  strong,  but  the  joints  show  an  astonishing  suppleness, 
so  that  the  most  curious  and  apparently  laborious  postures  are  often  adopted 
when  resting.  They  find  it  quite  easy  to  dodge  the  flight  of  a  spear  by  an  almost 
imperceptible  movement.  It  must  be  observed  that  too  little  notice  has  been 
taken  in  most  descriptions  of  the  effects  of  defective  nutrition,  so  that  what  is  really 
a  mark  of  low  civilization  has  been  treated  as  a  racial  peculiarity.  But  we  look 
in  vain  for  any  really  tangible  marks  such  as  a  sharply  circumscribed  race  ought 
to  offer.  Some  peculiarities  are  to  be  referred  to  the  influence  of  the  conditions 
of  their  life,  some  have  been  indicated  by  the  most  unprejudiced  observers  as 
marks  of  hybridism,  while  others,  as  for  instance  reports  about  the  hair,  are  difficult 
to    bring    into    any  consistency.       Whenever   the    question    of    the    unity  of   the 


Queensland  girl.      (From  a  photograph  by  C.  Gunther. ) 

Australian  race  has  turned  up,  it  has  been  found  impossible  to  adduce  any  con- 
vincing proofs  of  it. 

We  should  most  naturally  expect  a  solution  of  this  question  from  careful  skull 
measurements,  but  what  do  these  tell  us  ?  The  Australian  head  is  one  of  the 
smallest,  but  within  these  limits  the  variations  are  great.  If  we  rely  upon  the 
twenty-four  skulls  measured  by  Davis,  and  the  eighteen  measured  by  Topinard, 
the  horizontal  circumference  varies  between  19  and  22  inches,  and  the  cubic 
contents  of  the  skull  between  66  and  88  cubic  inches.  Davis  even  records  a 
measurement  of  102  cubic  inches.  The  marked  prognathy,  the  projecting  eyebrows, 
the  depression  of  the  root  of  the  nose,  and  the  retreating  forehead,  Topinard  failed 
to  notice  in  five  or  six  skulls  out  of  eighteen.  The  roof-shaped  skull  which  some 
anatomists  have  noticed  as  characteristic  is  anything  but  universal  ;  it  is  absent  in 
more  than  half  of  Topinard's  list  of  skulls.  With  differences  such  as  these, 
Australian  skulls  would,  seem  to  require  classification  rather  than  unification.  In 
the  colour  of  the  skin  two  extreme  types  may  be  distinguished,  one  quite  yellow 
and  the  other  black  all  over.  The  intermediate  or  dark  brown  is  the  commonest, 
but  in  no  way  nullifies  the  diversity  of  the  two  extremes.     We  meet  with  the 


PHYSICAL  AND  MENTAL   CHARACTER   OF   THE  AUSTRALIANS       339 

same  in  the  hair  ;  curly  haired  Australians  have  been  seen  on  Murchison  Bay,  on 
the  west  coast  near  Port  Essington  and  on  the  Bogan  River  ;  microscopic  observa- 
tions further  are  said  to  show  that  there  are  persons  here  with  completely  Negro 
hair.  But  one  feature  which  is  unlike  Negroes  and  still  more  unlike  Malays  is  the 
strong  growth  of  hair  on  the  body,  particularly  in  the  beard.  The  taunt  applied 
to  beardless  people,  "  You  naked  cheeks,"  is  one  of  the  challenges  always  taken 
up  by  the  beardless  youth  among  the  South  Australians.  A  hairless  Australian 
is  an  isolated  pathological  accident. 

The  most  important  question  in  these  circumstances  is  that  of  the  geographical 
distribution  of  the  various  types,  and  no  more  positive  answer  can  be  obtained  to 
it  than  to  any  other  suggestion  as  to  the  affinities,  differences,  and  origin  of  the 
Australians.      The  earliest  reports   in  no  way  authorise  us  to  see  the  lighter  type 


Young  Queensland  man.     (From  a  photograph  by  C.  Giinther). 

on  the  Malayan  side  or  the  darker  in  the  opposite  direction.  Tasman  in  1644, 
and  Dampier  in  1686,  found  dark,  woolly-headed  people  on  the  north-west  coast ; 
and  it  is  no  contradiction  to  this  if  Grey  and  Usborne  found  among  them  individuals 
of  a  light  copper  colour,  with  smaller  heads,  moderate-sized  eyebrows,  and  well- 
proportioned  limbs.  In  1770  Cook  saw  in  Endeavour  Bay,  on  the  north-east 
coast,  chocolate-brown,  straight-haired,  well-built  men,  with  noses  not  strikingly 
flat  and  not  very  thick  lips.  Among  the  aborigines  of  the  south-east  there  were 
women  as  light  as  mulattoes.  Dumont  D'Urville  notes  certain  tribes  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  King  George's  Sound  as  belonging  to  a  more  nobly-formed  race. 
Similarly,  Hombron  and  Flinders  establish  far-reaching  distinctions  between 
Australians  of  a  higher  and  subordinate  class.  Stokes,  one  of  the  most  experienced 
of  all  Australian  travellers,  sums  up  his  judgment  in  the  phrase  :  "  The  Australians 
vary  as  curiously  as  their  soil."  Stuart  and  Leichhardt  are  astonished  by  the 
peculiar  and  capricious  differences  ;  and  the  discrepancies  among  the  descriptions 
of  later  observers  who  have  been  able  to  study  the  Australians  at  their  leisure, 
though  under  the  influence  of  Europeans,  are  no  less  strongly  marked.     We  need 


340 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


only  recall  here  Wilhelmi's  study  of  the  Port  Lincoln  tribes,  and  Earl's  remark, 
"A  circle  of  500  miles  round  Port  Essington  would  enclose  an  equal  number  of 
tribes,  varying  from  deep  black  to  the  reddish  yellow  of  the  Polynesians."  This  is 
enough  to  justify  the  assumption  of  a  wide  internal  difference  among  the  Australian 
tribes.  Undoubtedly,  darker  and  lighter,  woolly-haired  and  straight-haired  are 
mixed  up  together,  but  where  must  we  look  for  their  origin  ?  Must  we,  with 
Topinard,  speak  of  Negro  and  Polynesian,  some  Malay,  and  numerous  originally 
Asiatic  elements  ? 

To  the  Australian  aborigines  the  scattered  and  wandering  inhabitants  of  the 


Native  of  New  South  Wales.      (From  a  photograph. ) 


small  islands  which  surround  the  continent  also  geographically  belong.  The 
Melville  islanders,  for  instance,  are  genuine  Australians,  indicated  ethnographically 
as  such  by  their  inferior  spears  and  clubs,  their  miserable  huts  and  bark  canoes. 
The  Prince  of  Wales  Islands  in  Torres  Straits  deserve  mention,  since  their  popula- 
tion, the  Kowraregas,  form  the  extreme  northern  outposts  of  the  New  Hollanders, 
and  are  in  immediate  contact  with  the  Papuas  of  Torres  Straits.  With  their  passion 
for  wandering,  the  Papuas  from  New  Guinea  frequently  visit  these  islands,  so  that 


PHYSICAL  AND  MENTAL   CHARACTER   OF   THE  AUSTRALIANS        341 

they  have  a  visible  ethnographic  bearing  in  that  direction.  New  Guinea,  with  its 
Papuan  population,  has  always  provided  the  most  obvious  source  for  the  dark  races, 
and  similarly  the  introduction  of  the  straight-haired  race  seems  in  view  of  their 
Polynesian  elements  as  well  as  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Malays  and  their  inter- 
course with  North-West  Australia,  to  offer  no  great  difficulties  ;  but  since  we  have 
no  historical  record  of  such  immigrations,  nothing  but  a  sharp  geographical  separa- 
tion of  the  two  stocks  according  to  their  bodily  characteristics  could  afford  any 
secure  evidence  ;  we  can  only  regret  that  this  is  impossible. 

Least  of  all  must  we  overlook  the  effect  of  the  modes  of  living  in  this  land 
where  strong  contrasts  in  natural  characters  are  so  abundant.  Much  that  has  been 
said  about  the  physical  characteristics  of  the  Australians  reminds  us  only  too 
strongly  of  the  description  of  Bushmen  and  Fuegians.  Schurmann  ascribes  a  direct 
effect  to  the  influence  of  habitation  when  he  says  :  "  Where  the  land  is  desert  the 
inhabitants  are  few  in  number  and  of  miserable  appearance  ;  where  the  land  is  good 
they  are  comparatively  numerous,  good-looking,  and  active."  Besides  this  he  finds 
that  the  stronger  individuals  are  also  the  lighter-coloured,  and  here  he  has  especially 
the  South  Australian  tribes  in  his  eye.  That  the  women  in  general  make  a  less 
favourable  impression  than  the  men  must  no  doubt  be  ascribed  to  their  more 
laborious  and  burdened  existence  and  to  more  deficient  nourishment.  As  is  usual 
among  people  in  the  lower  stages  of  culture  who  live  under  conditions  of  poverty, 
the  Australians  are  not  remarkable  for  great  bodily  power  ;  Europeans  are  better 
runners,  jumpers,  and  pedestrians,  but  the  Australians  are  dexterous  in  hurling 
spears,  and  no  European  has  ever  beaten  them  in  throwing  the  boomerang.  In 
the  war  of  extermination  which  the  colonists  have  carried  on  against  them  they 
have  continued  to  place  many  difficulties  in  the  way  of  their  destroyers  by  extremely 
clever  employment  of  all  their  forces — even  of  their  colour.  Their  marches  are  as 
a  rule  short ;  in  the  acuteness  of  their  senses  they  surpass  inost  Europeans  ;  even 
women  and  children  dive  and  swim  well,  save  only  in  West  Australia,  where  canoes 
and  rafts  are  also  absent. 

Diseases  to  which  they  are  particularly  liable  are,  according  to  Taplin,  all  those 
of  a  scrofulous  nature — phthisis,  liver  disease,  dysentery,  and  epidemic  influenza  are 
specially  frequent ;  measles  and  scarlet  fever  unusual  even  when  they  are  rife 
among  white  men  in  the  neighbourhood.  Small-pox  has  caused  great  destruction 
among  them,  venereal  diseases  even  greater.  The  frequency  of  old  people  is  to  be 
ascribed  not  so  much  to  longevity  as  to  early  senility.  The  great  mortality  among 
children  is  to  be  referred  to  hereafter. 

Half-breeds  between  whites  and  Australians  have  some  points  of  resemblance 
with  the  Negro  hybrids  known  as  mulattoes.  There  is  a  considerable  number  of 
them  in  Australia,  and  their  physical  strength  and  dexterity  are  employed  chiefly 
in  tending  the  herds  ;  they  are  fertile. 

One  almost  shrinks  from  inquiring,  in  the  case  of  a  people  whose  conditions 
of  living  are  so  unpropitious,  into  those  qualities  of  soul  and  intellect  for  the  pre- 
evolution  of  which  only  the  most  favourable  external  conditions  suffice.  In  order 
to  avoid  being  led  astray  by  the  phenomena  of  a  dwindling  race,  we  shall  have 
to  assign  more  importance  to  natural  disposition  than  to  what  has  actually  arrived 
at  development.  In  the  disposition  of  the  Australian,  through  his  excessively 
nomadic  mode  of  life,  an  important  feature  is  a  want  of  steadiness.  Young 
Australians  who  have  enjoyed   the   best   opportunities  of  leading  a  tranquil  and 


342  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

profitable  life  have  suddenly  returned  to  savagery  after  years  of  successful  educa- 
tion, after  willingly  adapting  themselves  to  a  settled  life  and  regular  activity,  and 
in  a  short  time  have  thrown  to  the  winds  all  the  requirements  of  civilization.  In 
handicrafts  and  in  the  use  of  tools  they  have  often  been  in  no  way  inferior  to 
white  men,  but  they  have  lacked  the  power  of  concentrating  their  thoughts  upon 
definite  tasks.  People  have  noticed  in  the  Australians  the  acuteness  of  their 
senses,  the  power  of  imitating  voices,  an  accurate  musical  ear, — all  the  results 
of  a  savage  life.  But  the  capital  invested  in  this  is  not  very  productive  ;  no 
permanent  acquisition  of  culture  results  from  it, — nothing  which  can  secure  to  a 
man  a  firm  grip  on  Nature.  Their  soul-depressing  misery  hangs  as  a  counter- 
poise to  it,  and  the  Australian  stands  unquestionably  far  behind  the  ideal  child 
of  Nature — the  North  American  Indian.  To  this  the  climate  contributes ;  the 
Australian  lives  under  the  pressure  of  a  climate  particularly  untrustworthy 
in  respect  of  the  moisture  which  is  essential  to  the  production  of  food.  The 
oppressive  heat  of  the  steppe  districts,  the  inevitable  sudden  transition  to  cold  at 
night,  contribute  their  stupefying  effect.  For  this  reason  the  Australians  of  the 
north  are  far  more  awake  and  intellectually  more  energetic  than  those  of  the 
south  ;  they  are,  too,  of  a  more  stable  character,  and  that  says  much.  If  in  spite 
of  this  we  find  more  intelligence  in  the  south  than  we  expect,  it  produces  the 
impression  of  fragments  from  a  better  condition.  "  Nothing  shows  this  better 
than  religion,  in  which  every  detail  rings  like  muffled  voices  from  an  earlier  and 
richer  time,"  says  Waitz-Gerland.  Life  under  these  influences  for  a  long  period 
has  caused  much  which  formerly  existed  in  their  natural  endowment  to  slumber. 
What  stimulating  forces  are  there  in  a  tribe  where  not  more  than  a  couple  of 
hundred  people  live  together?  Europeans  have  occasionally,  though  seldom, 
through  their  personal  example,  trained  aborigines  into  men  good  for  something. 
Yet  in  recent  times  a  more  favourable  judgment  of  the  Australian  character 
seems  to  be  in  course  of  formation. 

The  mission  schools  show  the  Australians  to  be  people  of  moderate  endow- 
ments. In  reading  and  writing  they,  as  a  rule,  make  good  progress,  but  arith- 
metic is  less  satisfactory  ;  in  many  parts  the  aborigines  have  no  expression  for 
the  higher  numbers.  According  to  the  missionaries  they  possess  a  faculty  of 
imitation  and  a  retentive  memory,  but  their  intelligence  is  shallow  ;  everything 
with  them  is  mechanical.  They  can  be  educated  without  very  great  difficulty 
in  the  simpler  trades,  but  preachers  and  teachers,  gifted  like  some  who  have  been 
produced  by  Africa  and  Polynesia,  are  very  seldom  found  among  converted 
natives.  Judged  by  the  missionary  standard,  the  races  of  Australia  may  best 
be  compared  with  the  light  South  African  races. 

If  all  knowledge  is  fragmentary,  that  of  the  Australians  is  doubly  so.  They 
possess  a  good  deal,  but  always  in  fragments,  which  easily  submit  to  their  destiny 
of  falling  into  the  oblivion  natural  to  all  that  is  lifeless  and  disconnected.  Language 
occasionally  casts  some  light  upon  the  mode  in  which  the  aborigines  look  upon 
Nature,  as  when  those  of  Adelaide  use  a  generic  term— /«2<:7«fl — for  all  stinging 
animals,  or  when  the  Dieyeri  have,  besides  their  word  for  sun,  moon,  stars,  special 
terms  for  the  evening  star,  the  milky  way,  a  bright  winter  star  in  the  northern 
sky,  two  winter  stars  in  the  southern  sky,  a  constellation  like  an  eagle's  claw 
appearing  in  the  west  in  the  winter,  falling  stars,  the  rainbow,  noon,  south 
and   north,  sunrise   and   sunset ;     the   myths   also   deal   much  with  constellations. 


PHYSICAL  AND  MENTAL   CHARACTER   OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS       343 

They  know  how  to  reckon  time  by  the  phase  of  the  moon  ;  like  the  Polynesians 
they  divide  the  sky  into  eight  regions,  and  name  the  winds  from  them.  In  the 
west  the  year  is  divided  into  six  seasons  ;  their  capacity  for  taking  their  bearings 
is  extraordinary,  their  knowledge  of  locality  is  so  great  that  at  the  distance  of  a 
day's  journey  they  can  accurately  describe  the  direction  in  which  a  point  lies, 
and  no  less  accurate  is  their  recollection  of  localities  which  they  have  once  visited. 
Besides  these  practical  acquirements,  the  intellectual  life  of  the  Australians  has 
very  little  to  show.  Taplin  took  some  trouble  to  collect  the  traditions  current 
among  the  Narrinyeri,  which  gives  a  notion  of  the  vacuity  of  their  minds.  This 
tribe  supposes  itself,  before  it  came  to  its  present  situation,  to  have  wandered 
down  the  Murray  and  the  Darling,  and  has  some  recollection  of  a  devastating 
sickness  which,  before  the  arrival  of  the  Europeans,  came  in  the  same  direction. 
Some  remember  the  terror  which  Sturt  inspired  in  them  when  he  crossed  the 
Alexandra  lake  in  his  boat ;  and  the  confusion  which  two  oxen,  who  had  strayed 


Billy  Bull  and  Emma  Dugal,  natives  of  South  Australia.      {From  photographs. ) 

from  the  eastward,  caused  in  their  camp,  people  retreating  before  them  as  if  they 
were  demons.  In  1840  a  ship  was  wrecked,  and  twenty -five  of  those  who 
escaped  were  murdered  by  them.  The  Europeans  killed  some  of  them  for 
punishment.  In  1844  they  killed  a  squatter,  after  which  a  good  deal  of  friction 
ensued  with  the  white  police.  This  is  the  entire  history  of  one  generation  of  an 
Australian  tribe. 

They  scarcely  attempt  to  fix  their  ideas  in  writing,  yet  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  Australians  have  made  more  progress  in  this  art  than  was  believed  a  few 
years  ago.  The  first  discovery  of  message-sticks  with  picture-writing  capable  of 
affording  copious  information  to  a  native  was  made  in  1880,^  a  further  token  of 
the  extremely  fragmentary  state  of  ethnographical  study  in  the  Australian  domain. 
These  sticks  are  brought  to  most  perfection  in  West  Australia  ;  in  Queensland 
and  New  South  Wales  they  are  rougher.  Similarly  sentences,  possibly  exorcisms, 
are  engraved  upon  stones  which  are  used  at  the  Corroboree  dances,  and  not  only 
are  objects  belonging  to  external  nature  represented  in  this  picture-writing,  but 

'  [This  is  hardly  correct.    They  were  known  as  far  back  as  1840.    Stejotirn.  Anthr.  Inst,  xviii.  "  Message 
slicks."! 


344 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


conventional  signs  are  included,  lines  cut  straight  and  slanting,  and  the  like,  so 
that  it  is  something  more  than  mere  picture-writing.  The  aborigines  are  said  to 
be  very  clever  at  writing  and  reading  these  primitive  hieroglyphics  ;  message-sticks 
of  this  kind  have  been  conveyed  to  prisoners  in  order  to  inform  them  of  plots 
for  their  release  ;  they  are  said  also  to  be  despatched  when  two  tribes  declare 
hostilities.  The  stick  also  serves  the  messenger  as  a  safe  conduct,  often  over 
great  distances.  With  them  it  is  not  a  question  of  the  interpretation  of  language, 
but  the  representation  of  ideas.  Messages  written  on  sticks  are  read  by  persons 
belonging  to  very  different  tribes,  and  understood  with  some  explanation  on  the 
part  of  the  messenger.     They  appear  also  as  plain  wooden  staves,  symbol  of  the 

message    which     is     orally    trans- 
mitted ;    the  messenger    is    inviol- 
able.    The  same  object  is  obtained, 
by  simpler  tokens  ;  notches  in  the 
smooth   bark   of  trees,  a   heap  of 
stones,  a  bunch  of  reeds,  indicate 
the    road    taken,    and    inform    the 
following  troop  as  to  the  direction. 
Smoke    and    fire   signals    are    fre- 
quent ;    casting    dust    into    the   air 
is  a  sign  of  war ;  on  the  declaration 
of  war  a  stick  with  emu  feathers 
is     sent.        In      West     Australia, 
according   to   Eyre,  a    network  of 
reeds     serves     for     a     messenger's 
credentials, — a  reminiscence  of  the 
once  more  widely-developed  knot- 
writing  of  which  Kortiim  has  given 
an  example  from  Cooktown.     Rock 
drawings  certainly  come  under  the 
same  head  ;  not  only  animals,  but 
men  in  all  positions  and  attitudes 
are  represented  often  in  company 
with     animals,     which     points    to 
hunting  or  fishing.     On  the  upper 
Glenelg   is    a   chain    of  sandstone 
,  hills  with  many  caverns  ;  many  of 

them  are  pamted,  mostly  yellowish  red.  In  one  was  found  a  drawing  of  a  fish 
a  yard  long  ;  on  the  slanting  rock  roof  of  another  is  painted  on  a  black  ground 
a  white  figure  with  yellow  eyes  and  widely  puffed-out,  curly,  red  hair,  with 
regular  rows  of  white  dots;  the  body  is  not  finished,  but  is  clad  in  a  sort  of 
closely-fittmg  coat.  On  one  of  the  walls  near  by  may  be  seen  four  heads,  one 
above  another,  with  thick,  blue,  frizzed-out  hair,  and  further  up  on  the  roof  an 
elliptical  figure,  on  which  there  is  a  red  kangaroo  on  a  golden-yellow  ground 
stripped  with  red,  and  divided  by  a  broad,  white,  transverse  band,  together  with 
two  arrow  heads,  one  of  which  with  two  bullets  is  flying  towards  the  animal,  the 
other  away  from  it ;  hard  by  a  man  is  depicted  in  rough  outline  dragging  a 
Several  other,  but  inferior,  pictures  of  animals  and  men  are  found 


Message-sticks  with  picture-writing,  from  West  Australia— 
one-third  real  size.      (Berlin  Museum. ) 


red  kangaroo. 


< 

LjJ 


o 


o 

H 
CD 

< 

o 
o 


a: 
o  t 


1x1 


< 


CL 


o 

CO 


PHYSICAL  AND  MENTAL   CHARACTER   OP   THE  AUSTRALIANS       345 

close  by.  Some  of  these  paintings  have,  perhaps,  a  religious  signification.  Gesture 
and  finger-language  is  highly  developed  ;  Kempe  says  that  the  Central  Australian 
tribes  of  the  Macdonnell  range  can  express  almost  anything  by  the  position  or 
movement  of  the  hands  and  fingers. 

The  fundamental  features  of  the  Australian  language,  as  Friedrich  Miiller 
has  pointed  out,  are  its  polysyllabic  formation,  with  .syllables  as  a  rule  beginning 
with  a  consonant  and  ending  with  a  vowel  or  liquid.  Its  affinity  with  the 
languages  of  Oceania  still  awaits  evidence,  so  far  as  concerns  the  direction  of 
individual  points  of  relation.  The  sounds  h,f,  v,  s,  z  are  said  to  be  wholly  lacking. 
In  inflection  the  suffix  predominates.  The  numbers  are  singular,  dual,  plural. 
Besides  the  six  usual  cases  of  nouns,  Taplin  distinguishes  in  the  South  Australian 
■  language  special  inflections  for  the  various  senses  of  the  ablative — in  pronouns 
also  a  ca'usative.  The  accent  is  usually  on  the  penultimate.  The  Australian 
loves  ellipses.      Shortenings  of  words  occur  as  well  as  extensions. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  their  intellectual  value,  we  find  in  the  Australian 
languages  a  great  wealth  of  concrete,  contrasted  with  a  dearth  of  abstract  terms. 
Numerals  seldom  run  beyond  three  or  five  ;  anything  further  is  expressed  by 
compounds.  Colour  terms  are  defective  ;  but  terms  expressing  relationship  and 
degrees  of  age  are  copious.  The  very  indifference  of  the  aborigines  makes  the 
study  of  the  Australian  languages  difficult.  The  casual  way  in  which  they 
speak,  and  the  running  of  words  into  each  other,  the  tendency  to  change  the  vowels, 
all  interfere  with  fixity.  New  words  are  readily  coined  and  foreign  words  adopted. 
There  are  in  Australia  numerous  dialects  which  are  fundamentally  identical  ;  their 
multiplicity  is  more  apparent  than  deep-reaching.  Out  of  a  number  of  synonyms, 
one  tribe  will,  by  preference,  use  one  to  express  a  given  meaning,  another  another;  but 
each  understands  both  terms.  They  have  a  special  word  to  denote  every  minutest 
portion  oT  the  human  body  ;  so  that  it  is  possible  for  different  travellers  to  ask 
the  name  for  a  particular  member,  and  get  those  for  different  bits  of  it.  Of  the 
number  of  the  Australian  languages  and  dialects  we  can  only  form  an  estimate. 
According  to  Grey  and  Bleek  there  are,  in  the  south,  seven  languages,  all  broken 
up  into  a  crowd  of  dialects,  since  every  nomad  tribe  has  its  own.  Certain 
languages  have  a  wider  distribution  ;  one  is  spoken  frpm  Moreton  Bay  to  the 
Hawkesbury  River,  one  from  King  George's  Sound  to  Stark  Bay  and  the 
Gascoigne  River,  and  far  into  the  interior.  The  same  language  with  dialectic 
variations  is  found  round  Adelaide.  The  natives  of  the  Murray  and  Murrumbidgee 
can  understand  those  of  King  George's  Sound,  and  similarly  the  Hunter  and 
Macquarie  languages  are  radically  akin.  The  languages  of  the  north  coast  are 
also  numerous  ;  five  are  found  in  close  proximity  on  Cape  York,  and  four  on  the 
Coburg  Peninsula.  In  the  interior,  according  to  Kempe,  there  is  a  general  com- 
munity of  language  among  the  tribes  within  an  area  marked  by  23"  and  28°  South 
latitude,  132°  and  134°  East  longitude,  perhaps  even  further;  an  area  that  is  of 
45,000  to  50,000  square  miles. 

The  following  table  of  the  terms  for  parts  of  the  human  body  shows  the 
resemblance  between  the  languages  of  the  south,  south-west,  and  east.  The 
intervening  languages  of  the  interior  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  these  as  these 
to  one  another,  so  that  we  have  here  a  widespread  similarity,  while  the  North 
Australian  languages  ought  possibly  to  be  classed  separately,  or  more  nearly 
allied  to  those  of  New  Guinea  and  the  neighbouring  islands. 


346 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Tribe  and  place  of  abode. 

Hand. 

Mouth. 

Tongue. 

Eye. 

Narrinyei'i 

Mari 

Tore 

Tallanggi 

Pili 

Adelaide 

Marra 

Ta 

Tadlanya 

Mena 

Port  Lincoln 

]Marra 

Narpata 

Yarli 

Mena 

Swan  River 

Marhra 

Dta 

Dtallang 

Mel 

Blanchewater  (S.  Australia)  . 

Hurra 

Tiya 

Yarley 

Minna 

New  South  Wales,  Sydney   . 

Mutturra 

Tullun 

Ngaikung 

Melbourne  .                               •, 

Munung 
Myrongatha 

Warongatha     ) 
kundernir     J 

Tallan 

Myng 

Echuca 

Peean 

Warroo 

Saleng 

Maa 

Murundi  on  the  Murray 

Mannurukoo 

Taako  munno 

Ngantudh 

Korllo 

Moreton  Bay 

Yamma 

Tambur 

Tallaun 

MiUo 

Wimmera  (Victoria) 

Mannanyuk 

Tyarbuk 

Tyalli 

Mirr 

Wentworth 

Muna  mambunya 

Yelka 

Tarlina 

Makie 

Kamilaroi   . 

Murra 

Tulle 

Mil 

Dippil  (Wide  Bay) 

Dwruin 

Tunka 

Dunnum 

Mi 

The  less  we  can  expect  to  find  moral  courage  among  the  Australians,  the 
more  must  we  admire  such  traces  of  it  as  have  not  been  weakened  in  their 
struggle  for  a  wretched  existence.  Examples  are  found  among  them  of  really 
heroic  determination  and  admirable  sangfroid ;  suicide  is  unknown  among  these 
barbarians.  On  the  other  hand,  they  show  a  high  degree  of  self  control,  which, 
in  deference  to  superstition  or  tradition,  they  inflict  or  allow  to  be  inflicted  on 
themselves.  As  regards  warlike  disposition,  different  tribes  vary,  but  it  is  seldom 
that  any  one  is  wholly  free  from  a  state  of  war.  Menaces  from  a  distance,  and 
attacks  from  ambush,  belong  to  the  nature  of  primitive  warfare,  but  in  no  way 
exclude  the  possibility  of  facing  death  when  the  moment  comes.  In  West 
Australia,  to  the  present  day,  the  names  of  bold  and  fierce  native  leaders,  who 
fought  Europeans  for  years  together,  fall  with  a  threatening  sound  on  the  ears  of 
colonists.  They  were  dexterous  at  covering  themselves  with  their  shields,  clever 
at  dodging  spears,  which  they  would  sometimes  catch  and  contemptuously  throw 
back,  aiming  also  only  at  such  as  covered  themselves  with  their  shields  ;  doubtless, 
from  apprehension  of  blood  feuds.  Thus  their  fights  often  lasted  for  a  long  time 
without  any  one  being  wounded  ;  and,  consequently,  in  fighting  among  themselves, 
they  were  hardly  what  we  should  call  brave.  In  their  conflicts  with  Europeans, 
however,  they  showed  real  valour,  and  would  often  have  succeeded  had  their 
numbers  been  greater. 

Singing  and  dancing  being  the  favourite  entertainment  of  Australians,  it  is 
curious  that  they  are  of  all  races  the  poorest  in  musical  instruments.  They  have, 
indeed,  instruments  for  beating  time,  most  frequently  bamboos,  which  are  struck 
with  a  stick,  but  even  this  is  not  common  to  all  tribes.  Most  strike  with  one 
stick  on  another,  it  may  be  a  throwing  stick,  holding  it  against  their  brea.st,  but 
also  merely  upon  a  skin  stretched  or  only  unrolled.  Among  the  West  Australians, 
indeed,  drums  of  very  rough  workmanship  have  been  found,  but  among  the  South 
Australians  the  only  music  is  that  afforded  by  beating  skins  and  shields.  The 
Australians  of  Port  Essington  have  a  flute,  probably  got  from  the  Malays,  which 
is  blown  through  the  nose  in  the  Polynesian  style.  We  may  also  mention  the 
hand  clapping  with  which  they  accompany  their  songs. 

Dances   are   always   accompanied   by  .songs,  the   modes   of  which   have   in  all 


PHYSICAL  AND  MENTAL    CHARACTER   OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS       347 

cases  something  melancholy  about  them.  In  them  all  one  notices  the  drop  from 
a  high  pitched  tone  to  a  lower  one.  It  is  not  possible  .sharply  to  distinguish 
speaking  and  singing.  In  times  of  emotion  their  speech  passes  imperceptibly 
into  song,  the  time  being  in  accordance  with  the  degree  of  their  passion.  Joy, 
anger,  and,  says  Grey,  even  hunger,  move  them  to  singing.  The  simple  com- 
parisons or  contrasts  of  their  songs  are,  it  must  be  confessed,  not  without  a  certain 
poetry,  but,  as  in  the  adornment  of  their  bodies,  we  trace  here  the  simple  and 
impoverished  character  of  their  fancy.  Taplin  has  noted  down  a  number  of 
Narrinyeri  dance  songs  ;  they  consist  simply  of  the  description  of  experiences  of 
travel,  the  chase,  or  war.  All  Australian  songs,  which  Grey  and  others  have 
recorded,  are  equally  primitive  in  structure  and  naive  in  thought,  with  a  tendency 
to  a  final  rhyme. 

A  word  should  be  added  about  the  Corroboree,  which  is  of  the  nature  of  a 
simple  dance  with  singing,  or  is  modified  into  a  propitiatory  or  magic  dance,  or  is 
held  generally  to  celebrate  events  of  the  most  various  kinds.  Generally  the  men  dance 
while  the  women  accompany  with  music  and  song.  In  Queensland  it  is  a  still  more 
solemn  occasion  than  in  South  Australia,  and  the  following  customs  are  observed. 
The  men  pass  the  day  hidden  in  the  thicket,  when  they  have  themselves  rubbed 
with  fat  by  their  wives  in  a  manner  such  as  the  festive  dance  deserves,  and  paint 
themselves  in  a  way  to  strike  terror.  When  it  is  dark  the  women  light  a  mighty 
fire,  begin  to  beat  the  drums,  and  sing  a  monotonous  air.  Thereupon  the  dancers 
appear  with  spears  and  firebrands  in  their  hands,  having  their  ankles  bound 
round  with  bunches  of  gum-tree  leaves.  With  hideous  gestures  they  begin  the 
dance,  which  at  last  passes  into  a  wild  fantastic  running  and  chasing  in  circles, 
or  backwards  and  forwards.  From  time  to  time  they  utter  a  wild  howl  and  strike 
their  spears  violently  together,  or  dash  their  torches  upon  the  ground  till  the  sparks 
fly  far  and  wide.  These  dances  only  take  place  at  night,  chiefly  at  the  time  of 
full  moon.  The  Corroboree  often  becomes  indecent,  particularly  in  the  excep- 
tional cases  when  the  women  share  in  the  dances. 

It  is  impossible  to  understand  the  Australians,  apart  from  their  extensive 
nomadism,  to  which  all  the  natural  qualities  of  the  land  contribute.  At  the 
bottom  of  it  lies  the  deficiency  of  water,  and  the  unequal  distribution  of  food, 
plants,  and  animals,  which  partly  results  from  this.  The  dry  season  causes  a  large 
number  of  places  otherwise  favourable  to  habitation  to  be  simply  im.possible. 
But  since,  owing  to  the  almost  total  absence  of  mountains  to  feed  the  springs, 
permanent  drought  is  no  less  great  than  the  time  and  amount  of  rainfall  are  incal- 
culable, there  are  few  permanent  oases,  and  the  arrivals  of  damp  monsoons,  few 
and  far  between  as  they  are,  are  an  insufficient  check  to  nomadism.  Vegetable 
food-stufifs  are  often  to  be  sought  for  at  great  distances,  while  animals  avoid  the 
dry  regions  almost  as  much  as  men.  Thus  the  lack  of  mountains  and  large 
rivers  over  the  largest  part  of  the  country  makes  for  migration,  and  if  we  further 
regard  its  isolated  position,  the  conditions  of  Australia  are  as  unfavourable  as  we 
can  conceive  for  the  development  of  a  settled  population.  Thus  the  nomad 
tribes  of  the  west  go  about,  the  men  with  their  weapons  in  front,  the  women  with 
the  baggage  and  the  children  in  the  rear.  Their  burden  is  generally  increased 
by  the  clothing,  since  on  the  march  it  is  pleasant  to  go  naked.  Every  woman 
carries  on  her  back  a  sack  containing  a  flat  stone  for  crushing  eatable  roots,  pieces 
of  quartz  for  knives  and  spear  heads,  stones   for  axes,  cakes  of  gum  for  mending 


34S  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

old  weapons  or  preparing  new  ones,  kangaroo  sinews  for  thread,  and  needles  of 
kangaroo  bone,  opossum  hair  to  make  girdles,  pieces  of  kangaroo  skin  for  polishing 
the  spears,  sharp  shells  to  serve  as  ki)ives  and  axe  heads,  yellow  and  red  ochre 
for  painting,  a  piece  of  bark  for  making  bast,  ropes,  girdles,  ornaments  of  sorts, 
tinder  for  making  fire,  some  fat  and  a  piece  of  quartz  revered  as  a  relic,  having 
been  extracted  by  the  doctor  from  a  sick  man  as  the  seat  of  his  sickness,  and 
besides  these,  roots  or  fruits  collected  on  the  road.  Between  back  and  sack  they 
carry  a  store  of  undressed  hides,  and  in  their  hand  a  staff  5  or  6  feet  in  length,  or 
a  firebrand  ;  and  often  are  burdened  in  addition  with  their  husband's  spears.  Not 
more  than  16  or  18  miles  is,  as  a  rule,  done  on  one  of  these  marches  ;  and  if 
indications  of  game  appear  on  the  way,  the  men  go  off  in  pursuit,  sending  the 
women  and  children  under  the  escort  of  the  elder  men  direct  to  the  camp 
previously  fixed  upon.  The  start  is  not  made  very  early,  and  as  a  rule  some 
urgency  on  the  part  of  the  more  active  is  needed  to  put  an  end  to  the  chattering 
and  dawdling. 

The  length  of  stay  depends  on  the  quantity  of  food,  water,  or  other  con- 
veniences ;  but  even  so  they  seldom  remain  in  one  place  longer  than  a  fortnight, 
owing  to  the  pressure  exerted  by  other  groups.  Consequently  changes  of  abode 
are  usually  more  frequent  in  summer  than  in  winter.  The  huts  often  remain 
when  the  camp  is  deserted,  which  explains  the  comparative  frequency  with  which 
deserted  camps  appear  in  narratives.  Meetings  for  the  purpose  of  council  or 
festivity  are  another  cause  of  tribal  wanderings.  Many  ceremonies  require  the 
co-operation  of  several  allied  tribes.  Yet,  again,  fear  of  spots  where  a  death  has 
occurred,  and  other  forms  of  superstition,  are  reasons  for  migration.  Considering 
the  number  of  children  in  a  family  usual  in  these  days,  over-population  can  seldom 
be  regarded  as  a  motive.  Yet  we  must  remember  that  if  other  conditions 
prevailed  in  this  respect  before  the  contact  with  Europeans,  this  must,  by  reducing 
the  amount  of  available  food,  have  created  rapid  shifting  in  the  possibilities  of 
obtaining  subsistence. 

The  number  of  Australians  has  always  been  small  ;  to  all  appearance  larger 
in  the  north  and  north-east  than  in  the  south  and  west.  Since  the  invasion  of 
the  European,  it  has  decreased  year  by  year — one  of  the  darkest  spots  in  modern 
history,  and  not  only  in  that  of  Australia.  The  European  immigration  has  been 
of  much  greater  harm  than  benefit  to  the  aborigines  ;  their  land  has  been  annexed, 
their  game  in  great  measure  extirpated  ;  the  strangers  have  destroyed  the  reeds 
of  which  they  built  their  houses,  the  grass  on  which  they  slept ;  the  skins  whereof 
they  made  clothes,  the  bark  which  served  to  build  their  canoes,  are  hardly  to  be 
found  any  longer.  We  must  not  therefore,  from  their  present  debased  condition, 
draw  conclusions  as  to  what  they  were  originally  ;  nor  can  we  hope  to  find  among 
their  enervated  and  widely  scattered  tribes  the  better  qualities  which  they  once 
possessed.  The  Bushmen  of  Africa  are  perhaps  the  only  race  whom  the  white 
men  have  treated  with  so  little  consideration  ;  and  when  the  Australian  ventured 
to  resent,  by  force  of  arms,  infringement  of  their  valued  rights  of  property,  they 
were  abused  for  being  quarrelsome.  With  thoughtless  stupidity,  England  made 
Australia  a  penal  colony,  and  recognised  no  right  on  the  part  of  the  natives  to 
their  own  land.  Nowhere  was  the  colonial  policy  of  laissez-aller  and  laissez-faire 
so  eariy  or  so  decisively  condemned  as  here ;  but  it  was  in  vain.  The  history 
of   the  Australian  colonies  recounts  wanton  slaughters  en  masse  of  defenceless 


DRESS,  WEAPONS,  AND  OTHER  BELONGINGS  OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS   349 

natives — veritable  man  hunts,  accompanied  by  licentiousness  with  its  soul  and 
body-destroying  consequences,  the  importation  of  spirits,  and  so  forth.  The 
result  has  been  a  steady  decrease  in  the  number  of  aborigines.  No  trustworthy 
estimate  of  the  total  number  of  the  Australians  exists.  Before  the  European 
immigration,  we  may  put  them  with  equal  justice  at  one  or  at  two  hundred 
thousand.  In  185  i,  according  to  an  estimate  resting  in  some  respects  on  a  firmer 
basis,  it  was  attempted  to  fix  the  number  at  S  S  ,000.  The  decrease,  though 
universal,  was  not  everywhere  so  great  as  in  Victoria,  where  between  1836  and 
1 88 1  the  number  fell  from  some  5000  to  770.  The  census  of  1876  gives  a 
total  of  3953  for  the  colony  of  South  Australia,  of  whom  1000  were  living  in 
settled  districts;  if  we  take  the  total  in  1842  at  12,000,  they  would  have 
diminished  to  a  third.  In  districts  which  we  can  more  easily  check,  there 
are  also  evidences  of  decrease.  In  1877,  the  Narrinyeri  of  South  Australia 
numbered  613,  and  among  them  Taplin  noted  for  the  eight  years  1869-1877, 
150  births  and  162  deaths  ;  though  he  tries  to  mitigate  the  significance  of  these 
figures  by  pointing  out  that  people  were  brought  there  to  die.  Yet  even  so  the 
proportion  is  assuredly  not  encouraging.  Among  the  natives  who  live  more 
remote  from  the  Europeans,  we  must  also  not  overlook  the  prevalence  of  infanticide. 
If  we  inquire  as  to  the  causes  of  decrease  which  continue  to  operate,  we  may 
in  the  southern  parts  practically  omit  war.  Although  good  relations  with  the 
government  were  early  established  in  South  Australia,  the  tribes  had  in  1878  so 
dwindled  since  the  appointment  of  the  first  governor  in  1836,  that  it  was  found 
difficult  to  get  together  a  small  collection  of  their  weapons.  As  soon  as  the 
home  government  recognised  the  wretched  way  in  which  the  natives  were  dying 
by  sickness,  and  its  own  responsibility  for  this,  it  took  various  preventive  steps. 
Between  1821  and  1842  ;£'8 0,000  was  spent  in  the  improvement  and  protection 
of  the  aborigines  ;  and  almost  every  British  Colonial  Minister  has  considered  it 
his  duty  to  call  upon  the  Australian  government  to  look  after  them.  Only  this 
care,  even  if  it  could  be  of  much  avail  under  the  prevailing  system,  came  too  late. 
Schools  for  natives  were  no  doubt  founded  in  Adelaide  and  other  places,  and 
liberally  supported  ;  but  in  a  few  decades  these  schools  became  superfluous,  for 
the  Adelaide  tribe  died  out,  and  its  kindred  as  well.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
mounted  police  has  been  constituted  the  chief  organ  of  government  in  regard  to 
the  Blacks,  and  the  work  of  the  Protector  of  the  Aborigines  has  become  incon- 
siderable. The  very  discouraging  report  of  the  sub-protector  in  Adelaide  for 
1875  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  smallest  birth-rate  and  the  largest  death- 
rate  are  always  found  among  the  settled  tribes.  They  have  been  especially  thinned 
by  consumption,  measles,  and  small-pox. 


§  12.  DRESS,  WEAPONS,  AND  OTHER  BELONGINGS  OF 
THE  AUSTRALIANS 

Clothing— Ornament— Painting— Tattooing— Weapons— Throwing-sticks  and  boomerangs— Huts— Villages— 
Canoes— Fishing— Hunting— Preparation  of  food— Food-stuff-s-Cannibalism— Dearth  of  water— Traces 
of  agriculture — Implements  and  manual  skill — Trade. 

Little  is  to  be  said,  so  far  as  matter  goes,  about  the  clothing  of  the  Australians  ; 
but  the  fact  that  it  is  little,  or  even  negative,  is  in  this  case  interesting,  as  it  shows 


35° 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


how  inadequately  they  acted  with  a  view  to  their  own  good.  In  Central  and 
South  Australia  the  climate  is  singularly  harsh  and  changeable  ;  yet  we  find 
Australians  totally  naked,  or  wearing  only  a  body-ring,  not  merely  in  the  tropical 
north,  but  also  in  the  west  and  south.  Even  the  poorest  and  most  wretched  do 
not  forget  to  paint  their  bodies,  justifying  Martin's  remark  about  the  West 
Australians  :   "  What  they  wear  is  ornament  rather  than  clothing." 

The  most  universal  article  of  clothing  among  male  Australians  is  a  girdle  of 
plaited  grass,  bast,  or  hair,  whether  of  man  or  some  animal.  In  West  Australia 
this  is  often  some  hundreds  of  yards  in  length,  reaching  as  high  as  the  navel. 
In  many  cases  it  is  purely  ornamental,  but  in  the  north  it  serves  to  carry 
boomerang,  axe,  and  the  like.  In  Southern  Australia  the  men  used  to  wear 
round  their  bodies  a  ring  made  of  their  own  hair,  adorned  when  possible  with 
emu   feathers,  drawing  it  tight,  so  that  it  often  served  as  a  "  soldier's  luncheon." 


Woman's  apron  of  emu  feathers.      {Berlin  Museum. ) 


Probably,  as  in  Melanesia  and  Africa,  it  also  had  some  hygienic  and  religious 
meaning.  Besides  this,  the  cloak  of  opossum's  or  dog's  skin  is  widely  used. 
In  the  north  it  is  rare,  becoming  more  frequent  south  of  the  Arrowsmith  river ; 
but  it  is  by  no  means  universal,  even  on  the  less  genial  west  and  south  coasts. 
In  some  districts  the  skins  are  very  carefully  prepared,  in  West  Australia  the 
lighter  skins  of  the  kangaroo  doe  are  selected.  More  general  is  the  kangaroo 
skin  worn  like  a  sack,  in  which  the  women  wrap  their  sucking  children  ;  it  is 
either  knotted  round  the  neck  or  fastened  round  the  forehead  with  a  cord  of 
rushes.  In  the  pre-European  time  no  foot  or  head  coverings  were  possessed  by 
the  Australians. 

The  universal  adornment  is  painting,  by  preference  with  red,  white,  and  black  ; 
colours  with  which  we  frequently  meet  on  shields  and  other  articles.  There  are 
certain  distinctions  of  age  and  sex,  but  these  are  not  found  throughout.  Face, 
body,  and  the  chief  part  of  the  limbs  are  covered  with  this  decoration,  consisting 
on  the  north-west  coast  in  a  vigorous  rubbing  of  the  abdomen  with  red  ochre, 
sometimes  in  similar  covering  of  the  face,  sometimes  in  a  combination,  often 
tasteful,  of  dots  and  lines.  The  Australians  of  the  south-east  used  to  paint  their 
bodies   in   regular  circles,  squares,  and  crosses  ;  some  have  been   disposed  to   see 


DRESS,   WEAPONS,  AND   OTHER  BELONGINGS  OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS    351 

especially  in  the  red  a  kind  of  sacred  colour,  since  corpses  are  painted  with  it, 
and  it  is  the  finery  of  festive  dances  ;  while  among  some  tribes  is  only  per- 
mitted to  the  elder  men,  youths  powdering  their  hair  with  red  earth.  At  times 
they  twist  up  their  hair  with  a  string,  paint  the  whole  thing  red,  and  decorate  it 
further  with  emu  and  cockatoo  feathers,  the  tail  of  a  dog,  and  such  like.  White 
is  among  some  tribes  in  the  north  and  west  the  war  colour,  in  the  south  it  is  the 
mourning  colour  ;  they  also  paint  and 
powder  their  faces  with  white  in  the 
dances.  In  the  west  and  north  black 
is  mourning.  They  are  especially 
fond  of  wearing  neck  ornaments  of 
mother-of-pearl,  teeth,  crabs'  claws, 
armlets  of  vegetable  fibre,  necklaces 
made  of  bits  of  reed  or  straw  tied  to 
a  cord.  The  elder  men,  however,  seem 
to  despise  ornament. 

The  form  of  tattooing  which  con- 
sists in  cicatrisation  of  the  skin  is 
omitted  only  by  some  individual  tribes. 
As  a  rule  all  the  elder  men  of  a  tribe 
are  thus  scarred,  while  in  certain  tribes 

the  operation  has  a  place  among  the  ceremonies  of  admission  to  the  class  of 
elders.  The  process  consists  in  making  a  series  of  long  oblique  scars  in  the  region 
of  the  breast,  also  upon  the  back  and  shoulders,  seldom  on  the  body  below  the 
waist,  never  on  the  face.  The  operation  is  performed  with  bits  of  shell  or  glass, 
and  repeated  before  the  wounds  are  completely  healed,  until  strong  cicatrices  have 
developed. 

Weapons     are    essentially    the    same     throughout    Australia, — spear,    shield, 


Wooden  belt,  said  to  be  Australian,  but  perhaps  from 
the  New  Hebrides — one-fourth  real  size.  (Berlin 
Museum. ) 


Necklace  of  kangaroo  teeth,  probably  from  West  Victoria— one-sixth  real  size.      (Berlin  IVIuseum. ) 

boomerang,  axe,  and  wooden  club.  The  natives  of  Cape  York,  and  perhaps 
some  other  tribes  of  the  extreme  north,  are  said  to  carry  bows  and  arrows  ; 
certainly  arrows  with  bone  points  are  used  by  the  inhabitants  of  Prince  of 
Wales  Island,  but  seem  from  the  nature  of  their  ornament  to  belong  to  the 
domain  of  Melanesian  forms.  The  weapons  are  in  general  simple  and  coarse, 
so  that  herein  the  Australians  are  far  inferior  to  their  Polynesian  and  Malayan 
neighbours.  Australian  weapons  are  of  imperfect  finish  and  poor  in  ornament, 
nor  does  this  arise  only  from  the  lack  of  iron  and  other  metals,  which  is 
shared  by  the  far  more  artistic  Polynesians.  They  are  much  nearer  to  the 
South  Africans,  who  also,  though  possessing  iron,  are  distinguised  by  the 
extremely   careless   fashion   of  their    weapons.      The   chief  material    everywhere 


352 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


is  wood  ;  stone  and  bone  are  less  employed  than  the  lack  of  metals  would  lead 
one  to  expect.  Finely -polished  stone  weapons  are  never  to  be  found  in 
Australia,  while  cleverly -chipped  flint-heads  and  blades  are  rare.  In  some 
districts  the  natives  point  their  spears  with  flint  and  other  stones  ;  even  spear- 
heads of  rock  crystal  are  recorded  in  Queensland,  and  of  opal  in  North -West 
Australia.  They  are  also  provided  with  barbs ;  the  setting  of  them  in  a 
wooden  shaft  by  means  of  string  and  gum  is  also  characteristic  of  Australian 
weapons. 

First  and  foremost  come  the  spears.     For  these,  thin  stems  of  eucalyptus  six 


1 


;gs'^' 


'■^-ar , 


Wommeras  or  throwing-sticks  of  the  Australians— one-fifth  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum  and  British  Museum.) 

feet  and  more  in  length  are  chosen,  which  are  straightened  in  the  fire,  slightly 
charred,  and  hardened  at  the  end.  This  is  the  simplest  form  ;  the  first  improve- 
ment consists  in  making  a  hole  for  throwing  with  the  help  of  a  throwing-stick. 
Besides  this  the  spear-bearer  generally  has  in  his  sheaf  some  spears  provided  with 
barbs  ;  a  two-pointed  piece  of  wood  is  attached  by  sinews  to  the  spear  point  in 
such  a  way  that  its  lower  end  projects  barb-wise.  These  barbs  are  carried  loose 
in  a  pouch  until  the  hunting-ground  is  reached.  Their  use  in  war  is  prohibited 
among  the  Australians  in  Port  Lincoln.  A  shorter,  thicker  spear,  as  a  rule  not 
more  than  a  yard  and  a  half  long,  is  used  for  spearing  fish.  In  North  Australia 
a  short  light  javelin  for  small  game  occurs.  All  the  other  spears,  however,  are 
hurled  with  a  throwing-stick  called  wommera  or  wumera,  in  South  Australia 
also  midla;  this  is  from  20  to  30  inches  in  length,  smaller  in  the  south  than  in 
the  north,  consisting  in  a  flat  piece  of  hard  wood  furnished  at  one  end  with  a 


Wooden  spears,  mostly  from  North  Australia  ;  the  second  and  third  from  the  right  are  fish-spears - 
one-fifth  real  size.     (British  Museum  and  Berlin  Museum). 


2  A 


354 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


hook,  while  at  the  other  end  is  fastened  a  lump  of  resin  and  a  piece  of  quartz,  or 
a  tuft  of  opossum's  hair,  so  that  it  may  not  slip  out  of  the  hand  in  the  act  of 
throwing.  In  the  royal  museum  at  Leyden  there  is  a  cylindrical  throwing-stick 
probably  from  North  Australia,  ornamented  at  the  handle  end  with  a  bunch  of 
fringes  made  of  human  hair,  the  hook  at  the  other  end  being  fastened  with  the 
balsam  of  Xanthorrhoea.     The  hook,  usually  a  kangaroo  tooth,  is  laid  in  the  hole 


New  South  Wales  men,  showing  breast  soars.      (From  a  photograph. ) 

on  the  under  side  of  the  spear ;  stick  and  spear  are  held  with  the  fingers  of  the 
right  hand,  and  the  weapon  thrown  at  the  level  of  the  eye.  The  throwing-stick 
gives  the  spear  its  direction,  and  by  its  action  as  a  lever  increases  the  force  of  the 
throw.  For  convenience  the  inner  side  is  slightly  concave,  the  outer  convex ; 
both  are  frequently  ornamented   with   oblique  scratches.      The    throwing-stick ;  is 


North  Austrahan  bow,  said  to  be  from  Cape  York— one- thirteenth  real  size.     (British  Museum.) 

unknown  in  some  parts  of  the  west,  but  is  still  used  on  the  York  peninsula. 
Other  varieties  of  spears  are  made  from  light  reed,  with  a  point  half  a  yard  long 
of  hard  wood  affixed  to  it,  while  others  are  provided  with  barbs  of  flint. 

The  Australian  club  or  waddy  is  usually  a  roughly -wrought  cudgel,  most 
nearly  akin  to  the  South  African  kirri.  Its  thicker  end  may  be  flattened  into  a 
four-sided  shape,  and  set  with  spikes  like  a  "  morning  star."  With  some  slight 
modifications  these  appear  as  missile -clubs  ;  they  strike  their  object  with  the 
handle  whirling  round  the  knob,  and  so  form  the  transition  to  the  boomerang. 
To  the  same  class  belong  the  widdis  or  wirris  of  the  South  Australians,  made  from 


DJiESS,   WEAPONS,  AND  OTHER  BELONGINGS  OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS    355 


eucalyptus  stems  half  a  yard  in  length  and  about  the  thickness  of  a  finger,  with 
knots  on  one  end,  and  at  the  other  slightly  curved  in  the  fashion  of  a  sabre.  They 
are  thrown  at  small  animals,  or  used  at  the  beginning  of  a  fight  before  people  take 
to  the  spear.  The  throwing-stick  and  missile-club  or  nu//a  go,  as  a  rule,  together. 
A  peculiar  weapon  is  the  boomerang,  called  also  wagno,  keili,  and 
bomeran.  The  Australians  make  it  from  boughs  of  the  acacia  pen- 
dula,  or  from  some  other  tree  of  similar  growth,  giving  to  the  green 
wood  the  desired  curvature  in  the  fire.  As  is  well  known,  the  boome- 
rang when  thrown  travels  forward  for  some  distance,  and  returns  in 
an  ellipse  to  within  a  few 


s 


.0 


paces  of  the  thrower.  If 
it  strikes  its  mark  it  falls 
to  the  ground.  A  skilled 
thrower  can  give  the 
weapon  almost  any  direc- 
tion he  likes  ;  to  increase 
the  force  of  the  stroke 
it  is  hurled  so  as  to  touch 
the  ground  with  its  flat 
side,  and  rise  ricochetting 
to  a  considerable  height. 
The  natives  are  capable 
of  knocking  over  birds  or 
small  mammals  at  200 
paces ;  as  a  weapon  of 
war  it  is  dangerous,  from 
the  impossibility  of  judg- 
ing at  the  moment  when 
it  is  seen  in  the  air  how 
it  will  go  or  where  it  will 
come  down.  The  most 
expert  throwers  of  the 
boomerang  are  considered 
to  be  the  tribes  on  the 
Macleay  River,  and  those 
on  the  Shoal  River  in 
New  South  Wales.     The 


Stone  axes  ,  the  thiee  above  fiom  North  Austiil  a  the 
lower  from  Queensland  or  Victoria— one-sixth  real  size. 
(Berlin  Museum.) 


genume 


boomerang  must  be  bent  almost 


at  a  right  angle,  with  something  of  a  twist  in  the  surface,  but  it 
occurs  in  various  forms.  In  South  Australia  it  is  long,  thin,  and  heavy, 
and  is  only  thrown  at  fish.  Here  it  is  called  wadna,  and  is  closely  akin  to  the 
widdi.  For  warlike  purposes  it  is  larger  and  less  curved  than  for  the  chase  ot 
birds  or  for  play.  It  is  chiefly  found  in  the  east ;  there  are  various  specimens 
of  it  in  our  museums  simply  ornamented  with  scratched  lines  and  anima 
figures.  In  the  extreme  north  the  boomerang  is  not  in  use,  in  the  south-west 
it  is  little  more  than  a  toy.  In  the  bush  the  Queenslanders  use  their  large 
wooden  sword,  a  piece  of  flat  wood  which  has  sharp  pieces  of  stone  set  with  gum 
in  a  groove.  ,, 

Both  in  the  south  and   the  north  the  stone  axe  or /««/^  was  once  equally 


356 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


common.      It   consisted    of  a   stick   to   which    a    stone    having    either   a   groove 
ground  or  a  hole  bored  in  it  was  attached  by  means  of  gum,  sinew,  or  bast.    With 


Boomerangs  and  boomerang-shaped  clubs.     The  stick  in  the  middle  is  of  uncertain  use— one-tenth  real  size. 

(British  Museum  and  Berlin  Museum. ) 

this  incisions  were  made  in  the  smooth  and  strong  stems  of  the  trees,  which  the 
natives  then  climbed  with  the  help  of  a  cord  looped  round  the  stem.     Polished 


DRESS,  WEAPONS,  AND  OTHER  BELONGINGS  OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS    2iS7 


axes  are  for  the  most  part  not  found,  but  a  certain  amount  of  smoothing  was 
given  by  rubbing  two  stone  blades  together  in  water.  The  shields,  as  shown  in 
the  coloured  plate,  serve  rather  to  protect  the  hand  and  to  ward  off  blows  than  to 
cover  the  body.  Their  thickness  is  much  greater  than  their  breadth,  and  they  more- 
over have  an  edge  bearing  a  striking  resemblance  to  the  parrying  shields  used  on 
the  Upper  Nile.  The  monotonous  Australian  ornament  of  oblique  and  serpentine 
lines  is  a  characteristic  feature  of  them.  The  best  shields  are  found  in  the  north, 
a  broader  form  occurs  in  Northern  Queensland  ;  on  King  George's  Sound  shields 
are  not  known  at  all. 

The  transition    from  weapon    to    implement    is    formed    by  the    digging-stick 


Axes  of  stone  or  horse-shoe  iron  from  Queensland— one-fifth  real  size.      (British  Museum. ) 


which  the  South  Australians  call  kiatta,  a  baton  about  a  yard  and  a  half  long  and 
as  thick  as  the  fist.  It  forms  the  inseparable  companion  of  the  women,  who  dig 
up  roots  with  its  thicker  end  sharpened  and  hardened  in  the  fire.  In  the  west  a 
wooden  implement  like  a  meat-tray  is  used  as  spade,  basket,  and  dish  alike. 

Considering  the  nomadic  ways  of  the  Australians,  their  hut-building  can  only 
be  imperfect,  and  for  a  similar  reason  it  reaches  a  higher  level  in  the  north  than  in 
the  south.  The  tribes  on  the  east  coast  of  Spencer  Gulf  in  summer  merely  stick 
a  few  wretched  boughs  in  the  ground  as  a  protection  from  -  the  wind.  In  winter 
they  weave  huts  of  a  niche  shape  and  cover  them  at  times  with  bark  ;  the  fire 
burns  in  front  of  the  hut.  Just  as  the  family,  when  encamping  after  its  wandering, 
lights  a  fire  the  first  thing,  and  does  not  build  its  hut  till  this  has  been  done,  so  as 


358 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


a  general  rule  the  fire  is  the  true  centre  of  family  life  and  business.  Thus  the 
South  Australians  use  the  word  wurlie  in  the  first  place  for  fire,  and  then  in  a  further 
sense  for  hut  or  habitation,  that  is  fire-place.  These  weather-screens  are  found  on 
Roebuck  Bay,  where  also  frequently  a  hole  is  dug  in  the  earth  large  enough  to 
hold  two  men  and  covered  with  a  screen  placed  slanting.  The  worst  dwellings 
were  those  of  the  aborigines  of  New  South  Wales,  who  put  up  an  insufficient  wall 
of  woven  work,  and  that  only  in  wet  and  cold  weather.  In  pre-European  times 
^  scarcely  any  country  contained  so  many  cave  dwellers  as  Australia. 
On  the  east  coast  of  Vincent  Gulf,  however,  they  have  stockaded 
houses,  and  in  places  where  the  natives  are  wont  to  make  a  longer 
stay  on  account  of  periodical  abundance  of  provisions,  permanent 
huts  are  erected.  In  Central  Australia,  particularly,  the  great 
number  of  these,  together  with  the  quantity  of  foot-tracks,  give  the 
district  the  appearance  of  being  more  inhabited  than  it  is.  In 
Eastern  and  Central  Australia  their  form  is  that  of  a  pointed  roof 
resting  on  the  ground,  some  four  yards  long  by  two  wide  and  very 
low,  woven  of  boughs  covered  with  eucalyptus  bark  and  open  on 
one  side.  In  West  Australia  they  have  an  arched  opening  about 
a  yard  high,  and  are  so  narrow  that  a  man  cannot  lie  at  full  length 
in  them.  This  kind  of  hut,  built  hastily  indeed  but  still  with  some 
stability,  is  used  in  the  interior  as  well  as  on  the  Gulf  of  Carpen- 
taria, on  Hanover  Bay,  and  in  some  other  places.  They  are  not 
very  roomy ;  three  persons  crouching  close  together  can  scarcely 
find  place  in  them.  Similar  to  these  are  the  huts  in  Endraghtsland, 
where  they  also  lived  in  caves.  The  huts  stand  singly  or  in  little 
villages  of  fifteen  and  more  together,  where  any  natural  protection 
is  found  ;  on  sand-hills  or  hillocks  or  in  the  bush. 

In  North  and  North-west  Australia  we  meet  with  something  like 
Papuan  influence  in  the  size  and  careful  construction  of  the  huts. 
Here,  where  the  houses  are  as  high  as  a  man,  large  enough  to  hold 
ten  persons,  built  of  stakes  daubed  with  clay,  the  village  assumes 
quite  a  different  position,  losing  the  casual  appearance  and  acquiring 
stability,  organisation,  and  fixity.  On  Rockingham  Bay  four  fire- 
places stood  in  the  middle  of  the  village  and  at  one  end  a  hut  of 
extra  size,  six  yards  long,  four  high,  and  two  wide,  in  which  were 
kept  the  weapons,  a  curious  red-painted  shield,  swords,  fishing-lines, 
(British  Museum.)  ^^^      j^  ^^^^  ^j^^^  ^  V\\\2.gt  hall  of  the  Melanesian  kind. 

The  navigation  of  the  Australian  peoples  is  an  indication  of  their  isolated  and 
backward  position.  A  great  part  of  the  coast  tribes  know  nothing  about  it.  On 
the  north-west  coast  there  are  only  wretched  rafts  of  mangrove  branches.  Where 
there  are  canoes,  that  is  in  the  whole  southern  half  of  Australia,  they  are  very 
imperfect  bark  canoes  with  paddles  half  a  yard  long.  Yet  even  with  these  they 
are  bold  and  hardy  enough  to  sail  several  miles  out  to  sea.  Near  Port  Essington 
the  indigenous  canoe  is  of  bark.  The  bark  of  the  eucalyptus  is  taken  off  in  broad 
and  long  strips,  the  strips  are  laid  on  the  ground,  and  the  sides  as  well  as  the  ends, 
which  roll  up  as  they  dry,  are  brought  into  the  desired  shape  by  binding  together 
with  string  and  weighting  with  stones.  When  newly  made  they  are  light  and 
handy,  but  very  soon  begin  to  decay.      In  northern  New  South  Wales  and  further 


Stone  club,  said  to 
be  Australian, 
possibly  from 
New      Britain. 


DRESS,   WEAPONS,  AND  OTHER  BELONGINGS  OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS    359 


north  there  are  canoes   made  of  tree  stems  hollowed  with    fire.     In   the  York 
Peninsula,  Cook  saw  boats  made  of  this  kind,  1 3  feet  long,  with  outrigger  and  long 


North  Australian  with  spears,  axe,  and  club.     (From  a  photograph. ) 

flat  paddles  ;  some  still  longer,  even  up  to  33  feet  with  double  outriggers,  are 
obtained  on  the  north-west  coast  by  barter  for  tortoise-shell  and  trepang.  Nothing 
is  known  of  the  Australians  undertaking  long  journeys  in  their  vessels.  Most  of 
the  islands,  on  the  south  and  east  coasts,  even  those  lying  as  near  as  Kangaroo 


36o 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Island,  are  uninhabited.  The  bark  canoe,  which  is  the  typical  Australian  craft,  is 
only  adapted  for  fishing  purposes,  though  perhaps  the  custom  of  carrying  fire  in 
these  narrow  crank  boats  points  to  occasionally  more  protracted  absences  from 
the  land. 

Except  in  the  north,  where  Malay  influence  prevails,  fishing  with  hooks  was 
originally  unknown  to  the  Australians,  but  they  knew  the  fish  spear  4  yards  long 
with  its  bone  point,  many  having  also  nets  made  of  grass  or  the  roots  of  rushes. 
The  women  chew  the  material  until  it  becomes  supple,  and  the  men  weave,  using  a 
stick  for  needle.  In  these  nets  they  catch  not  only  fish  but  also  water-fowl,  yet  all 
the  coast  tribes  do  not  possess  nets.  The  natives  of  Port  Lincoln  used  to  fish  in 
.shallow  water  with  the  hand  or  with  spreading  twigs  as  well  as  with  spears.  The 
fish  were  dried  and  preserved  packed  in  bark  ;  shell-fish,  both  salt  and  fresh  water, 
were  eaten  in  quantities,  but  never  raw.  On  the  coast  of  North  Australia  are 
found  veritable  kitchen-middens. 

All  mammals  are  hunted,  from  the  kangaroo  to  the  mouse  ;  birds  from  the  emu 


'^^^^S^s^.. 


Queensland  canoe.      (Godeffroy  Collection,  Leipzig.) 

to  the  smallest  wren  ;  snakes  too  and  other  reptiles,  the  process  being  to  stalk 
them  to  within  spear  or  boomerang  throw  ;  the  attention  of  the  animal  is  distracted 
by  making  a  noise  in  the  other  direction.  Larger  animals  are  also  driven,  especi- 
ally the  kangaroo,  in  winter  when  the  soft  ground  is  tiring  to  them,  fire  being 
employed  to  drive  the  animal  towards  the  hunters.  Animals  living  in  holes  are 
smoked  out ;  signs  are  used  to  avoid  making  a  noise.  A  spear  with  a  bunch  of 
feathers  stuck  upright  in  the  ground  indicates  concealed  game  ;  the  index  finger 
moved  with  a  jerking  motion  means  kangaroo  ;  three  fingers  outstretched,  with  the 
middle  one  depressed,  emu  ;  outstretched  thumbs,  opossum  ;  the  whole  hand  edge 
downwards,  fish.  They  prefer  not  to  hunt  by  moonlight.  The  dogs  are  not  of 
much  use,  for  they  can  neither  track  nor  retrieve,  nor  can  they  follow  emu  and 
kangaroo.  The  hunters  therefore  try  to  reinforce  themselves  with  old  traditional 
charms,  which  they  mutter  quickly  when  starting  in  chase  of  an  animal  ;  only 
grown-up  men  know  these.  To  them  also  are  confided  the  rules,  often  cast  in 
proverbial  form,  which  concern  the  appointment  and  use  made  of  the  prey  when 
captured.  Among  the  Port  Lincoln  tribes  full-grown  male  animals  are  eaten  by 
men,  female  by  women,  young  ones  by  the  young  people  ;  but  all  alike  may 
partake  of  the  common  kangaroo  rat.  The  wallaby  and  the  two  kinds  of  bandicoot 
may  not  be  eaten  by  women  or  young  people ;  in  the  case  of  the  former  they  are 
prejudicial  to  the  regularity  of  their  functions,  while  in  the  latter  they  make  the 


DRESS,   WEAPONS,  AND  OTHER  BELONGINGS  OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS    361 


beard  grow  of  a  light  colour  instead  of  the  favourite  black.      On  the  other  hand, 
lizards  promote  maturity  in  girls  and  snakes  make  women  fruitful.      Like  so  many 
other  ancestral  customs,  these  have  in  course  of  time  lost  much  of  their  force.      The 
dogs,  which  originally  were  only  dingoes,  but  now  are  mostly  crossed  with  European 
breeds  are  well  treated,  the  young  ones  being  in  case  of  necessity  suckled  by  the 
women  ;  they  are  also  used  for  eating.      Since  Australia  was  never  so  rich  in  game 
as  North  America,  and  the  weapons  of  the  Australians  are  poor,  the  chase  demands 
exertion  and  privation,  and 
is    the     cause    of    frequent 
changes   of  place  which  are 
prejudicial  to  civilization  ;   it 
is  most  laborious,  and  at  the 
same   time   most    necessary, 
in  the  hot   and   dry  season, 
when    the   sources    of  vege- 
table nourishment  are  scanty. 
The    Australians     much 
prefer   an    animal    diet,  but 
are    compelled     to     content 
themselves  in  great  measure 
with  a  vegetable  one.    Being 
entirely  without  pottery,  they 
have   only    limited    facilities 
for  preparing  food.      Boiling 
over    a    fire    is     unknown : 
where  vessels  for    this    pur- 
pose   are  found,    as    in    the 
extreme  north,  they  are  not 
indigenous.      Pots  and   cups 
made    of    shells,    of    skulls 
made    tight    with    gum,    of 
tortoise-shells,  will  not  stand 
the    fire ;    nor    will     bottles 
made  from  the  skins  of  small 
animals.     Meat    is    dressed 
by   broiling    over    an    open 
fire  or  on  embers  ;  and  the 
Polynesian  fashion  of  steam- 
ing   in     holes    dug    in     the 
ground  is  also  known.     On 

the  Upper  Glenelg  these  holes  were  circular,  and  lined  with  stone  ;  they  were  the 
common  property  of  the  tribe.  Fruits  and  roots  were  eaten  after  the  meat  as 
dessert.  The  Australians  are  fond  of  honey  from  the  Banksia  and  Xantkorrhoea  ; 
also  of  the  manna-like  gum  of  a  species  of  Eucalyptus,  called  "  peppermmt  gum, 
from  which  they  make  a  sweet  drink  by  adding  water.  Other  kinds  of  eucalyptus 
and  various  plants  also  yield  edible  gums.  The  Australians  do  not,  however,  eat 
everything  indiscriminately,  but  reject  several  things  eaten  by  Europeans,  as  certain 
fish,  crustaceans,  or  fungi  ;  yet  they  feel  no  disgust  at  such  things  as  maggots  or 


Striking  and  throwing  clubs— one-eighth  real  size. 
(Berlin  Museum.) 


362 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


rotten  eggs,  or  even  the  contents  of  the  intestines  of  animals  taken  in  hunting. 
Even  among  vegetables  they  use  as  articles  of  diet  some  that  we  reject  for  offensive 
taste  or  small  nutritious  value.  Among  the  Australians  of  Port  Lincoln,  Schurmann 
saw  only  one  root  eaten  raw  ;  all  others  were  roasted  in  the  ashes  and  peeled.  Many 
fruits  are  gathered  unripe  and  roasted  ;  in  South  Australia  especially  karkalla,  the 
fruit  of  a  sort  of  cactus,  and  a  bean  called  rondo.  This  attracts  a  crowd  of  visitors 
every  year  to  the  sandhills  of  Sleaford  Bay,  and  gives  rise  to  fights.  Food  has  a 
profound  influence  on  the  numbers  of  the  population.  Children  before  they  have 
got  most  of  their  teeth  are  not  competent  to  chew  the  hard  roots  and  berries,  which 
to  some  extent  explains  the  high  mortality  among  them. 

As  to  the  luxuries  of  the  Australians  we  have  little  information.      In  many 

places  no  intoxicating 
drink  was  found  in 
use  when  Europeans 
first  came.  The  only 
definite  report  of  any- 
thing of  the  kind  is 
that  given  by  Braim 
in  regard  to  the  mead 
drunk  by  the  natives 
of  New  South  Wales. 
It  is  not  certain 
whether  they  wgre  ac- 
quainted with  tobacco 
before  the  arrival  of 
Europeans.  The 

mode  of  smoking  in  the  Cape  York  district  is,  however,  peculiar  enough.  A  piece 
of  bamboo  2  or  3  feet  long,  and  as  thick  as  the  arm,  is  filled  with  tobacco  smoke, 
and  every  member  of  the  company  takes  a  whiff  in  turn  ;  which  reminds  us  of 
the  practice  mentioned  above,  as  obtaining  in  New  Guinea.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  aborigines  used  parts  of  narcotic  plants,  whether  for  chewing,  smoking, 
or  snuiifing,  but  with  the  exception  of  an  Eugenia,  it  is  not  known  what  these 
were.  Schomburgh  in  1881  first  described  a  plant — Duboisia  pituri — the  dried 
leaves  of  which,  either  smoked  or  chewed,  have  properties  nearly  akin  to  those  of 
opium  and  tobacco,  and  in  their  effect  stand  midway  between  the  two.  This 
grows  in  the  interior,  and  forms  an  important  article  of  trade  there.  Some  tribes 
are  acquainted  with  powerful  vegetable  poison,  but  the  Narrinyeri,  knowing  of 
none  such,  use  the  products  of  putrefaction  to  poison  their  weapons. 

Cannibalism  is  practised  in  Australia  from  various  motives,  but  is  not 
universal,  and,  indeed,  is  abhorred  by  some  tribes.  A  chief  ground  alleged  by 
the  Narrinyeri  of  the  Lower  Murray  to  account  for  their  hatred  of  the  Merkani  ^ 
was  that  they  stole  fat  people  to  eat  them.  A  man  who  had  a  fat  wife  never 
liked  to  let  her  go  alone.  In  the  west  districts,  where  Europeans  live,  cannibalism 
has  ceased ;  but  even  here  cases  of  it  still  occur  in  times  when  food  is  scarce. 
In  Central  Australia  it  exists  in  its  most  comprehensive  form,  the  pretext  being 
deficiency  of  game.  In  Queensland,  if  the  Bunya-bunya  tree  {Araucaria  bidwillii 
of  Hooker)  bears  an   abundance  of  its  floury  nuts,  the  supply  is   more  than  the 

1  ["Merkani"  appears  lo  be  the  name  applied  by  the  Narrinyeri  to  all  tribes  outside  their  own.] 


New  South  Wales  men,  showing  breast-scars.     (From  a  photograph.) 


DUESS,   WEAPONS,  AND  OTHER  BELONGINGS  OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS    363 


tribe  can  conSume,  and  strangers  are  permitted  to  share  in  the  feast.  When  the 
native  visitors  liave  lived  for  some  time  exclusively  on  this  vegetable  diet,  they 
are  said  to  feel  an  irresistible  craving  for  meat,  and  since  they  dare  not  kill  any 
of  the  local  game,  they  are  forced  to  slaughter  one  of  their  own  number.  But  a 
more  frequent  cause  of  cannibalism  is  war.  It  is  usual  to  eat  the  heart  and  the 
kidney-fat  of  the  slain,  with  a  view  to  appropriating  the  enemy's  courage.  With 
a  similar  object,  in  the  north,  you  take  your  foe's  head  along  with  you,  and  eat  his 
eyes  and  the  meat  off  his  cheeks,  after  which  the  skull  is  tossed  about  in  a  frenzied 
dance,  and  finally  set  up  on  a  stake.  The  practice  among  the  Australians  about 
Lakes  Albert  and  Alex- 
andra of  using  human 
skulls  as  drinking  -  cups, 
borders  on  anthropophagy. 
In  former  times  every 
woman  in  those  parts  had 
a  vessel  of  the  kind,  hol- 
lowed out,  smoked,  and 
prepared  by  herself  The 
magicians  pretend  that 
they  require  to  eat  human 
flesh.  In  Queensland  the 
men,  having  previously 
painted  themselves  white, 
devour  certain  portions  of 
the    body    of     a     young 

woman  or  a  girl,  as  a  proof   Australian  bushels  of  woven  grass — one-sixth  real  size.      (British  Museum.) 

of  relationship  or  attach- 
ment. Among  the  Central  Australian  tribes  bodies  are  devoured  to  avoid  the 
necessity  of  further  mourning.  Among  the  Dieyeri  a  trial  is  first  held  at  the 
grave,  to  ascertain  who  caused  the  death,  after  which  the  flesh  is  taken  off  the 
bones,  distributed,  and  eaten.  This,  however,  is  done  according  to  rule  ;  only 
mothers  may  eat  their  children,  not  fathers.      Still  less  may  sons  eat  their  parents. 

Water,  one  of  the  most  precious  possessions  in  this  land  of  drought,  is,  next  to 
women,  the  most  frequent  cause  of  quarrels.  The  art  of  spring-finding  is  highly 
developed.  As  a  substitute  for  it,  covering  the  belly  with  mud  is  in  repute  as  a 
thirst-quenching  and  cooling  process.  In  accounts  of  travels  in  West  Australia, 
we  hear  also  of  wells  being  sunk. 

One  can  hardly  speak  of  agriculture  among  the  Australians,  only  traces  of  it 
have  been  observed.  Yams  were  found  in  cultivation  on  the  Prince  of  Wales 
Island,  in  the  north-west,  and  in  the  interior.  Grey,  in  his  journey  from  Gantheaume 
Bay  to  the  Hutt  River,  came  across  a  stretch  of  fertile  ground  more  than  3  miles 
in  breadth,  representing  a  single  plantation  of  warran  {dioscored),  literally  honey- 
combed with  holes  for  planting.  The  prohibition  to  dig  up  seed-bearing  food- 
plants  after  the  flowering  is  merely  the  necessary  result  of  ever-imminent  famine. 
It  is  a  long  step  from  this  to  their  preservation  and  increase  by  cultivation. 

The  life  of  the  Australian  native  afforded  little  room  for  industrial  activity, 
though  the  varying  distribution  of  the  raw  materials  gave  occasion  here  and  there 
for  a  division  of  labour.      Game  abounded  about  Adelaide,  and  the  tribes  of  that 


3^4 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


part  were,  accordingly,  more  expert  in  the  manufacture  of  rugs  and  cloaks  out  of 
furs  than  were  those  of  Port  Lincoln.  Hereditary  dexterity  contributed  to  this. 
Within  the  limits  of  a  single  tribe,  individual  families  work  at  things  for  which 
the  raw  material  is  accessible,  or  other  facilities  exist,  some  at  mats,  some  at 
weapons,  and  then  barter  their  manufactures.  But  most  things  are  made  when 
and  where  they  are  wanted.  In  individual  districts  the  productions  are  scanty 
and  of  little  variety,  and  the  districts  show  uncommonly  few  local  peculiarities. 
Primitive  industries  like  pottery,  polishing  stone  weapons,  everything  connected 
with  agriculture  and  the  breeding  of  cattle,  are  altogether  absent  in  Australia. 


Opossum  rug  ;  one-eighth  real  size.      (Berlin  Museum.) 

The  process  of  preparing  skins  consists  of  stretching  them  out,  scraping  and 
rubbing.  The  skins  are  sewn  together  with  the  tail  sinews  of  the  kangaroo,  the 
holes  being  first  pierced  with  a  sharp-pointed  bone.  As  the  skins  are  not  tanned, 
the  natives  are  careful  to  preserve  their  cloaks  from  damp.  The  art  of  weaving 
comes  chiefly  into  play  for  making  nets ;  and  in  this  the  Australians  use  a  loop 
similar  to  that  found  in  simple  fishing-nets  with  us.  In  matting  they  do  nothing 
remarkable  ;  but  their  basket-work  is  better,  sometimes  even  excellent. 

The  passion  for  ornament  has  never  developed  in  Australia  into  such  an 
inducement  to  trade  as  among  the  Africans,  with  their  love  of  beads  and  cowries. 
Attempts  to  start  a  trade  in  beads  with  Australians  did  not  result  favourably ; 
and  the  lack  of  native  products  for  exchange  contributed  to  this.  The  aborigines 
had  no  knowledge  how  to  get  at  gold,  and  the  trader  could  obtain  slaves  in  plenty 


THE  FAMILY  AND  SOCIETY  IN  AUSTRALIA  365 


nearer  home ;  so  that  the  chief  enticements  to  foreign  commerce  were  absent. 
The  small  attraction  which  Australia  offered  to  foreigners  was  certainly  a  main 
reason  for  the  oblivion  into  which  the  discoveries  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries  fell,  as  well  as  for  the  backward  state  of  the  whole  country  ethnographic- 
ally.  In  the  interior  some  tribes  carry  on  an  insignificant  trade  with  each  other, 
and  in  the  north  the  natives,  employing  intervening  tribes  as  intermediaries,  barter 
ochre  for  shields  and  other  objects.  The  most  important  articles  of  local  manu- 
facture that  can  be  named  are  weapons  ;  trade  is  also  done  in  skins  for  clothing, 
and  in  mats.     In  West  Australia  a  word  exists  to  denote  a  market  or  fair. 


§  13.  THE    FAMILY    AND    SOCIETY    IN    AUSTRALIA 

Birth Infanticide — Bringing  up  and  naming  of  children — Names  of  the  family  groups — Kobong — Exogamy — 

System  of  relationship — Inheritance — Position  of  the  woman — Morality — Wedlock — Marriage  by  capture — 
A  scene  from  the  daily  life  of  the  South  Australians — Funeral  ceremonies — Native  inquests — Tombs  and 
modes  of  burial — Weakness  of  the  political  organisation — Rights  of  property  in  land — Boundaries — Chief- 
ship — Family  groups — Questions  of  law — Blood  vengeance — Deliberative  assemblies — Intercourse  between 
tribes — State  of  war — Ngiampe  ;  Initiation  of  youths — Narembe  ;  Initiation  of  girls. 

When  a  woman  feels  that  her  time  is  approaching  she  retires  from  the  camp 
with  some  female  companions,  and  all  male  persons  have  to  keep  their  distance 
from  her.  After  the  birth  the  father  is  summoned,  and  at  once  sets  to  work  to 
render  service  to  his  wife  by  lighting  a  fire,  fetching  water,  and  in  other  similar 
ways.  A  barbarous  neglect  of  the  mother  and  the  new-born  child  on  the  part 
of  the  husband  is  by  no  means  the  rule  ;  nor  can  we  refuse  either  to  mothers 
or  to  fathers  the  credit  of  tender  affection  towards  their  children.  If  these  die 
the  mothers  not  unfrequently  carry  the  bodies  till  they  decompose,  and  afterwards 
carry  the  bones  with  them  in  the  sack  on  which  they  sleep.  Fathers  may  be 
seen  carefully  leading  their  tired  children  by  the  hand  or  carrying  them.  A 
mother  may  sometimes  have  allowed  the  child  which  she  carried  wrapt  up  in  a 
piece  of  bark  to  starve,  to  die  of  cold,  or  to  burn  itself  in  the  fire  ;  the  great 
infant  mortality  may  offer  strong  evidence  of  mistakes  in  the  bringing  up  and 
guarding  of  the  little  ones,  yet  the  fact  that  the  period  of  suckling  is  extended 
over  two  or  three  years  shows  plainly  the  natural  degree  of  maternal  love. 

Infanticide  was  and  is  very  widespread,  and  in  any  case  the  number  of  births 
is  out  of  all  proportion  to  that  of  the  children  who  survive.  Usually  the  new- 
born child  is  killed  immediately  after  birth  by  thrusting  a  stick  through  the  ears 
into  the  skull,  after  which  the  little  corpse  is  burnt  in  the  fire,  but  cases  of  killing 
by  throttling,  or  by  a  blow  from  a  club,  also  occur.  In  1 860,  one-third  of  all  the 
children  born  among  the  Narrinyeri  were  killed,  every  child  that  was  born  before 
the  next  elder  could  walk,  all  mis-shapen  children,  one  or  both  of  a  pair  of  twins, 
at  least  half  the  children  of  white  fathers  owing  to  jealousy,  female  children,  and 
finally,  children  of  marriages  entered  into  unwillingly.  But  if  it  is  once  decided 
that  a  child  is  to  be  kept,  the  patience  with  which  it  is  tended  is  unbounded.  In 
order  to  secure  its  thriving,  superstition  enjoins  that  the  navel  string  be  placed 
round  its  neck,  it  is  never  bathed,  but  rubbed  down  with  dry  sand.  As  soon  as 
a  boy  can  walk,  his  father  takes  him  with  him  on  hunting  and  fishing  expeditions, 


366 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


instructs  him  in  all  accomplishments,  and  teaches  him  the  traditions.  The  only 
child  s  play  for  the  boys  is  weapon  play,  especially  with  the  spear.  From  his 
lourteenth  or  fifteenth  year  the  youth  takes   part  in  war  and  other  affrays,  and  at 


New  South  Wales  women  and  child,      (From  a  photograph. ) 


drl^fSetT'  •"""   '"   *"""   ""^'"^   '°   ^'°"'-  »=  -  '^■»""  into  «.e 

The  child  receives  a  name  as  soon  as  it  can  wall^  K„f  „^ 
special  occasions,.,  ..  ^e  a„ai„„e„.  of'r„:„S' 'Tn^Llr^nHir?.  i! 


THE  FAMILY  AND  SOCIETY  IN  AUSTRALIA 


367 


customary  to  take  account  of  his  place  among  his  brothers  and  sisters,  and  of  his 
birthplace.  The  father  and  mother  also  assume  new  names  from  the  birth  of 
one  child  to  that  of  another.     The  origin  of  the  female  dual  names  is  unknown. 

In  consequence  of  the  custom  of  never  pronouncing  the  name  of  a  deceased 
person,  taken  together  with  that  of  borrowing  names  from  places,  local  peculiarities, 
animals,  and  events,  a  death  is  often  followed  by  a  change  not  only  in  the  names 
of  all  persons  bearing  the  same  name  with  the  deceased,  but  also  in  geographical 
and  other  appellations.  To  the  proper  name  is  added  the  tribal  name,  which  is 
taken  from  some  animate  or  inanimate  object,  and  enjoys  a  wide  extension.     Over 


Queensland  girls,  one  showing  "scar-tattooing."     (From  a  photograph.) 

a  district  of  West  Australia,  400  to  500  miles  in  breadth,  Grey  found  the  same 
names.  The  practice  of  exchanging  names  may  also  contribute  to  this — friends 
call  each  other  brothers  and  have  corresponding  mutual  obligations.  In  Wide 
Bay  the  custom  was  to  rub  noses  while  each  pronounced  the  name  of  a  friend, 
and  therewith  the  alliance  was  concluded. 

The  separate  tribes  are  broken  up  into  a  larger  or  smaller  number  of  groups, 
which  were  expected  to  abstain  from  marriage  within  themselves.  For  example, 
the  South  Australian  tribe  of  the  Narrinyeri  is  broken  up  into  eighteen  groups, 
each  of  which  is  regarded  as  a  family  among  whose  members  marriage  is  pro- 
hibited. Each  family  group  has  its  totem,  known  in  West  Australia  as  Kobong. 
Grey  found  everywhere  an  objection  to  any  sort  of  interference  with  the  Kobong. 
If  a  man  finds  the  animal  which  forms  his  cognisance  asleep,  he  will  not  kill  it,  and 


368 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


in  the  chase  he  will  certainly  allow  it  to  escape.  Any  one  who  has  a  plant  for  his 
Kobong  will  not  pluck  it  during  a  definite  portion  of  the  year,  and  under  certain 
circumstances.  The  West  Australian  regards  each  individual  belonging  to  the 
animal  or  vegetable  species  in  question  as  his  nearest  friend,  the  killing  of  whom 
would  be  a  great  crime.  An  important  part  of  the  men's  initiation  seems  to  be 
concerned  with  introduction  into  this  system  of  patron  spirits. 

The  Port-Lincoln  tribes  are  divided  into  Mattiri  and  Karraru.  No  Mattiri 
may  marry  a  Mattiri,  his  wife  must  belong  to  the  Karraru,  and  vice  versa.  Every 
child,  in  addition  to  his  own  name,  bears  that  of  the  maternal  group.  Here,  in 
the  south,  the  Kobong  also  plays  a  part,  though  one  of  less  importance  ;  but  it  is 
never  transmitted  to  a  son.     On  King  George's  Sound,  also,  we  find  two  classes 


Young  Queensland  man  with  "  scar-tattooing. "     (From  a  photograph. ) 

with  the  same  restriction  on  marriage.  About  Hermannsburg,  the  Peake  River, 
and  Charlotte  Waters,  the  division  is  more  complicated,  the  natives  falling  into 
four  sub-groups  ;  and  a  similar  division  is  found  in  West  Australia,  in  the  south 
of  Queensland,  and  among  the  Darling  tribes.  It  is  doubtless  owing  to  a  tribal 
fission  of  this  kind  that  we  find  on  the  Dawson  two  groups  named  respectively 
after  the  white  and  black  cockatoos  ;  whence  arose  the  comical  misconception 
that  the  West  Australians  were  named  after  the  most  important  article  of  their 
diet.  About  the  North-west  Cape,  the  Kobong  system  is  said  not  to  be  found. 
Alleged  caste  distinctions  are  almost  certainly  to  be  referred  to  this  exoga'iiiic 
tribal  organisation.  It  is  reported  that  at  Port  Essington,  besides  the  division  of 
the  tribe  into  families,  there  exists  another  strict  division  into  three  castes. 
According  to  Earl,  the  first  claims  descent  from  the  fire,  the  second  from  the 
soil,  while  the  name  of  the  third  means  "  net-makers,"  which  points  to  Kobong. 
Wilson  quotes  similar  names  as  existing  about  Raffles  Bay.  In  spite  of  their 
strict  separation  these  divisions  have  equal  rights  and  are  outwardly  quite  similar. 
Among  many  tribes  no  custom  is  held  more  sacred  than  exogamy.  The  least 
trace  of  blood-relationship  is  a  bar  to  marriage,  and  the  first  question  asked  in 


Melanksian  Axes,  Clubs,  and  Hammers. 
(i.  2)  Clubs  from  the  D'Entrecasteaux  Islands.  (3-5)  Adzes  from  Kastern  New  Guinea.  (6)  Bird's-head  Club 
from  New  Caledonia.  (7)  Clubs  from  the  Mores)Dy  Islands.  (8-10)  Hammers  from  Western  New  Guinea. 
(11)  Club  with  green-stone  disk,  from  Eastern  New  Guinea.  (12-14)  Adzes  and  axe  with  blades  of  iron, 
shell,  and  stone,  from  the  Anchorites  and  Admiralty  Islands.  (British  Museum.)  (i,  ■^,  7-14)  from  the 
Christy  Collection. 


2   B 


THE  FAMILY  AND  SOCIETY  IN  AUSTRALIA 


371 


courtship  refers  to  this.  If  the  couple  unite  in  spite  of  it,  their  union  is  regarded 
as  lawless ;  and  even  punished  with  death,  as  incest,  by  the  Australians,  who  in 
matters  of  morality  are  lax  enough.  It  has  also  been  proposed  to  refer  to  an 
exogamic  origin  the  Ngia-Ngiampe  ceremony,  to  be  mentioned  presently,  though 
this  is  otherwise  explicable.  Yet  it  is  a  fact  that  it  is  employed  when  there  is  a 
wish  to  prevent  marriage  between  members  of  different  tribes.  But  its  chief 
purpose  is  no  doubt  of  another  kind.  It  is  plain  that  the  number  of  women, 
already  insufficient  for  the  many  aspirants  to  marriage,  is  rendered  still  more 
insufficient  by  polygamy,  wherein 
the  senior  men  are  preferred  to  the 
disadvantage  of  their  inferiors. 
Accordingly,  in  every  family  mar- 
riageable women  have  a  high 
value,  as  is  plainly  expressed  in 
the  system  of  marriage  by  ex- 
change. It  is  thus  the  interest  of 
all  men  of  the  same  family  that  no 
one  of  them  should  marry  any  of 
their  own  young  women,  thereby 
depriving  the  rest  of  the  valuable 
object  to  be  obtained  by  an  ex- 
change. Among  the  features  of 
exogamy  we  naturally  find  the 
custom  that  the  son-in-law  shall 
not  utter  the  name  of  his  mother- 
in-law,  nor  the  daughter-in-law 
that  of  her  father-in-law,  nor  even 
use  the  name  in  a  general  mean- 
ing, if  it  has  one  ;  also  that  persons 
united  by  this  affinity  shall  never 
see  each  other  after  the  betrothal, 
or  that  the  future  mother-in-law 
must  keep  her  face  covered  in  her 
son-in-law's  presence. 

The  fact  that  the  rule  of  exogamy  is  observed  in  marriage,  but  not  so  strictly 
in  illicit  relations,  may  be  interpreted  on  the  supposition  that  this  institution  was 
started  at  a  time  when  marriage  was  on  a  firmer  footing.  In  any  case  its  object 
is  now  not  always  attained. 

Connected  with  this  is  the  strict  determination  of  the  degrees  of  kinship,  which 
we  find  also  among  other  exogamous  races.  Among  the  Narrinyeri  and  the 
Meru,  a  man  calls  his  brother's  children  "  son "  and  "  daughter "  ;  his  sister's 
children,  "  nephew  "  and  "  niece  "  ;  a  woman  calls  her  sister's  children  "  son  "  and 
"  daughter,"  her  brother's  "  nephew  "  and  "  niece."  A  Narrinyeri  peculiarity  is  to 
call  father  and  child  collectively  Retuleng,  mother  and  child  Ratuleng ;  and  to 
possess  words  denoting  "  a  person  who  has  had  a  loss,"  in  the  sense  of  widow  or 
widower.  Where  political  development  is  so  feeble  as  among  the  Australians, 
nothing  but  this  strict  organisation  of  kinship  gives  social  life  any  stability. 

Closely  bound  up  with  all  this  is  the  right  of  inheritance  through  females. 


New  South  Wales  woman  with  "  scar-tattooing.' 
(From  a  photograph.) 


372  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Family  connections,  acquired  through  the  mother,  are  most  strictly  maintained ; 
even  blood-feuds  pass  by  the  mother,  though  to  this  there  are  exceptions.  Among 
the  Narrinyeri  a  son  inherits  his  father's  property.  In  the  west,  every  father 
divides  his  land  between  his  sons  ;  if  he  has  none,  his  daughters'  sons  inherit.  A 
woman  can  possess  no  real  property.  In  the  south,  on  the  other  hand,  where  the 
inherited  land  always  has  a  name  of  its  own,  which  the  possessor  also  bears, 
women  share  in  the  inheritance  ;  in  the  north,  where  the  youngest  child  takes  the 
largest  share,  married  daughters  come  in.  The  widow's  position  among  the 
Central  Australian  tribes  is  peculiar ;  a  man  may  marry  again,  but  a  widow  becomes 
the  property  of  the  tribe, — a  form  of  polyandry.  The  West  Australians  have 
marriage  with  a  brother's  widow ;  and  also  the  custom  that  a  married  woman 
may  enter  into  an  engagement  with  an  unmarried  man,  contingent  on  the  death 
of  her  husband. 

That  the  wife  should  reckon  as  the  absolute  property  of  her  husband,  so  far 
that  in  Adelaide  the  term  for  "  married  man,"  means  "  owner  of  a  woman,"  is  not 
peculiar  to  Australia.  But  we  find  here  a  whole  number  of  customs  and  usages, 
tending  to  drive  the  wife  still  further  into  the  background.  The  pressure  of  a 
life  of  poverty  bears  most  heavily  on  the  weaker  sex.  We  hear  nothing  of  female 
chiefs  and  Amazon  bodyguards  as  in  Africa,  though,  among  the  Kurnai,  women 
seem  to  take  part  in  consultation.  Female  magicians,  female  doctors,  sacred 
females,  are  very  rare.  By  taboo  laws,  which  remind  us  of  Polynesia,  they  may 
not  eat  with  the  men,  and  are  excluded  from  all  religious  functions,  and  usually 
from  dances.  The  list  of  articles  of  food  which  are  forbidden  to  them  is  long ; 
including  many  fishes,  for  instance,  and  all  turtles.  Only  women  with  child  may 
eat  pigeons ;  with  all  others  they  disagree.  Yet  more  important  perhaps  is  the  fact 
that  while  certain  mystic  rites  exercise  a  great  influence  on  the  life  of  the  men, 
the  women  being  incapable  of  initiation  are  for  that  very  reason  placed  on  a  lower 
level,  and  in  many  respects  are  without  legal  rights.  Secret  societies  stand  like  a 
close  aristocracy  in  the  face  of  the  excluded  women  and  children.  Even  the  vow 
which  among  some  tribes  the  boy  at  his  admission  to  manhood  has  to  take,  that 
he  will  abstain  from  all  violence  towards  the  woman,  is  easily  broken  among 
people  of  so  unruly  and  incalculable  disposition.  The  Australians  share  with  all 
races  in  whose  soul  the  feeling  of  magnanimity  has  not  yet  awakened  to  con- 
sciousness a  hereditary  tendency  to  despise  women.  The  custom  in  vogue  among 
the  West  Australians,  by  which  one  old  woman  undertakes  the  ofifice  of  grand- 
mother to  the  tribe,  settles  quarrels,  separates  fighters,  but  also  summons  to  war, 
is  the  only  vestige  of  compensation. 

In  Central  and  South  Australia  great  laxity  of  morals  prevails  both  in  and 
out  of  wedlock.  European  influences  and  the  general  process  of  decadence  can 
only  have  tended  to  increase  this,  in  many  cases  actually  to  call  it  into  exist- 
ence. No  aid  is  given  to  morality  by  the  betrothal  of  girls  in  childhood,  or,  as  in 
West  Australia,  soon  after  birth,  to  men  of  mature  years  ;  nor  by  the  jealousy 
with  which  they  are  subsequently  watched.  This  is  a  safeguard  against  pro- 
fligacy only  by  making  it  an  infringement  of  acquired  rights  ;  just  as  adultery  is 
punished  with  death  without  its  being  any  breach  of  good  behaviour  on  a  man's 
part  to  make  over  his  wife  to  his  brothers.  We  are  told  that  the  aborigines  of 
Port  Lincoln  hold  the  community  of  wives  among  brothers  to  be  lawful,  while 
they  regard  as  disgraceful  the  loan  of  a  wife  to  a  friend,  or  the  exchange  of  wives 


THE  FAMILY  AND   SOCIETY  IN  AUSTRALIA  373 


between  acquaintances  for  one  night,  though  this  is  no  uncommon  occurrence.  In 
this  connection  it  is  significant  that  while  the  men  use  the  word  Yangara  for  their 
own  wives,  and  Karteti  for  those  to  whom  as  wives  of  brothers  or  near  relatives 
they  have  a  claim,  women  have  only  one  name  for  their  husband  and  his  brother. 

We  meet  with  polygamy  wherever  women  and  food  are  in  sufficient  abund- 
ance. In  the  fertile  north  -  west,  men  have  been  seen  with  eleven  wives  ;  on 
the  south-east  coast  with  two.  If  the  burden  of  existence  lies  heavy  on  the 
Australian,  half  of  whose  life  is  spent  under  privations,  it  falls  with  double  weight 
on  the  wife.  Yet,  in  spite  of  this,  many  observers  praise  the  touching  fidelity  of 
the  women  to  their  husbands  and  lords.  Wives  are  a  valuable  property,  which  the 
elder  men  try  to  keep  and  increase  as  much  as  may  be,  by  the  purchase  of  girls  or 
the  exchange  of  their  own  daughters  for  those  of  their  friends.  The  census  of 
South  Australia  for  1876  gave  2203  male  natives  against  1750  females.  Even 
among  tribes  that  have  never  come  into  contact  with  Europeans,  scarcity  of  women 
occurs ;  so  that  we  need  not  wonder  if  the  capture  of  women  is  frequently  a  cause 
of  war,  or  if  unfaithfulness  on  the  part  of  wives  is  punished  with  death  and 
mutilation. 

Capture  of  wives  has  been  designated,  with  some  exaggeration,  as  the  Australian 
form  of  marriage-contract.  When  a  woman  is  carried  off,  it  is  always  by  something 
of  the  nature  of  a  warlike  attack.  There  are,  however,  gentler  modifications.  In 
the  south-east  it  is  proper  for  a  youth  to  obtain  the  assent  of  a  girl  from  a 
neighbouring  tribe,  and  then  to  elope  with  her,  remaining  two  nights  and  a  day  in 
the  bush,  to  escape  an  imaginary  pursuit  on  the  part  of  her  tribe.  In  New  South 
Wales  the  method  is  rougher.  Here  the  girl,  even  when  agreeable  to  the  marriage, 
is  always  secretly  seized  and  carried  off  by  the  bridegroom  and  his  party.  This 
often  resulted  in  a  hot  fight,  wherein  the  girl,  snatched  from  side  to  side,  might 
easily  receive  most  of  the  blows.  But  frequently  the  fight  is  a  mere  pretence ;  it 
is  just  a  tradition,  with  which  even  the  women  would  be  sorry  to  do  away.  Some- 
times the  wife  is  obtained  by  purchase  or  exchange,  sometimes  received  in  return 
for  a  present.  In  the  two  latter  cases  the  arrangement  is  often  made  while  she  is 
still  a  child,  or  even  at  the  breast.  In  that  case  the  consent  of  the  female  partner 
is  desired,  but  in  no  way  necessary.  The  girl  expresses  her  willingness  by  lighting 
a  fire  in  the  husband's  hut.  The  consent  of  the  parents  and  relatives  is  thought 
much  more  essential  among  the  Narrinyeri ;  a  girl  who  enters  into  an  informal 
connection  with  a  man  is  regarded  as  a  prostitute,  the  fact  that  no  compensation 
is  given  for  her  being  a  blot  on  her  reputation.  Before  the  Narrinyeri  had  come 
much  into  contact  with  Europeans,  the  procedure  was  this.  Marriage  took  place 
at  ten  or  twelve  years,  and  was  a  pure  matter  of  exchange  ;  no  man  could  take  a 
wife  who  had  not  one  to  give.  It  is  the  brother  more  often  than  the  father  who 
gives  the  girl  away,  and  receives  the  gift  in  return  ;  but  he  can  sell  this  right  to 
another,  which  brings  us  near  to  marriage  by  purchase.  The  man  who  wishes  to 
marry  a  girl,  approaches  the  one  who  has  to  give  her  away  through  an  intermediary. 
Then  the  relations  on  both  sides  come  and  encamp  at  a  little  distance  apart.  In 
the  evening  the  girls  to  be  married  are  escorted  by  torchlight,  with  the  men,  into 
a  large  hut ;  the  relations  sit  about  for  a  time  in  silence,  then  sing  and  dance 
wildly.  Next  evening  the  same  thing  is  repeated  and  the  marriage  is  complete. 
If  a  bride  is  still  very  young,  her  husband  restores  her  for  a  while  to  her  people  ; 
and  often  rubs  her  with  fat  to  make  her  grow. 


374  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

The  only  death  regarded  by  the  Australians  as  natural  is  death  in  battle. 
Their  mind  cannot  put  up  with  the  idea  of  death  as  a  necessity.  Every  death  that 
is  not  brought  about  by  visible  violence  seems  to  them  the  result  of  magical  arts. 
These  are  facilitated  by  giving  the  magician  something  which  has  been  taken  from 
the  person  to  be  acted  upon  ;  and  for  this  reason  fragments  of  food,  gnawed  bones, 
and  the  like,  are  carefully  burnt.  The  first  funeral  ceremony  consists  in  discovering 
the  enemy  who  has  done  the  mischief  Among  the  Port  Lincoln  tribes  the  nearest 
of  kin  sleeps  the  first  night  with  his  head  on  the  body,  in  order  that  in  his  dreams 
some  indication  of  the  magician  may  reach  him.  On  the  following  day  the  corpse 
is  borne  out  upon  a  bier,  and  now  the  friends  of  the  deceased  call  out  the  names 
of  various  persons.  At  some  one  of  these  they  say  that  the  body  gives  a  start  in 
a  particular  direction  and  moves  towards  the  criminal.  The  Adelaide  natives 
carry  the  dead  on  a  wheel-shaped  bier  of  branches  ;  one  man  in  the  centre  supporting 
the  body  with  his  head,  until  the  inquest  has  arrived  at  a  conclusion.  Relations 
who  do  not  lament  sufficiently  at  the  funeral  are  easily  suspected  of  complicity  in 
the  death.  Among  other  tribes  in  the  south  the  corpse  is  laid  upon  a  bier  called 
"  the  Knowing  One,"  and  questioned.  A  movement  of  the  bier  is  regarded  as  an 
affirmative.     If  it  does  not  move,  further  questions  are  asked. 

Among  the  Dieyeri  the  corpse  has  its  great  toes  tied  together,  and  is  shrouded 
in  a  net.  The  grave  is  about  3  feet  deep.  Three  or  four  men  place  the  body  in 
this  and  let  it  lie  on  its  back  for  a  few  minutes.  Then  three  men  kneel  down  and 
lay  their  heads  upon  it.  Then  an  old  man  takes  a  rod  in  each  hand,  places  himself 
before  the  corpse,  strikes  the  rods  together,  and  questions  the  dead.  The  other 
men,  sitting  round  in  a  circle  and  acting  as  mouthpieces  for  the  dead  man, 
denounce  some  one,  upon  whom  the  whole  guilt  of  the  death  is  cast. 

/Another  way,  used  widely  in  the  south-east,  of  detecting  the  magician,  was  to 
observe  the  direction  in  which  some  insect  crawled  from  the  grave.  Or  one  man 
would  cleverly  find  footprints  leading  towards  a  suspicious  person.  Among  the 
Moreton  Bay  tribes,  after  the  dead  man  had  been  eaten,  the  official  sorcerer  would 
hold  up  his  skin  before  various  persons,  and  draw  conclusions  from  their  demeanour 
as  to  the  one  responsible.  An  unnatural  death  is  somewhat  discreditable,  and 
accordingly  when  the  dead  man  has  been  swathed  in  bark,  they  whisper  in  his  ear 
an  injunction  to  say  in  the  next  world  that  he  died  naturally.  The  tribes  of  Cape 
York  have  a  way  of  punishing  the  guilt  of  blood,  which  reminds  us  of  Polynesian 
customs.  After  the  funeral  feast  the  chief  enters  the  group  of  men  with  the  skull, 
weapons,  and  ornaments  of  the  deceased,  and  so  long  as  the  ceremony  lasts,  he  is 
allowed  even  to  commit  homicide,  as  the  representative  of  the  dead  man. 

If  the  reputed  slayer  belongs  to  another  tribe,  the  friends  of  the  accused  formally 
curse  the  dead  man  and  all  his  deceased  relatives  ;  thus  affording  a  casus  belli. 
Before  the  fight  the  dead  man's  tribe  raise  a  loud  cry  of  grief,  while  the  other  side 
excite  them  by  laughter,  mocking  dances,  and  buffooneries.  Both  sides  then  revile 
each  other  vigorously ;  a  few  spears  are  thrown  and  a  slight  wound  or  two  given. 
Finally  the  old  men  declare  that  honour  is  satisfied. 

The  "  native  inquest,"  as  it  is  called,  is  followed  by  the  interment.  This  takes 
place  either  below  or  above  the  surface  of  the  ground,  the  former  method  being 
more  frequent  in  the  southern  half  of  Australia.  In  the  north-west,  and  on  the 
shores  of  Lake  Alexandra,  Grey  and  Taplin  speak  of  great  sepulchral  mounds. 
These  perhaps  go  back  to  a  time  when  the  deaths  were  more  numerous ;  among 


THE  FAMILY  AND  SOCIETY  IN  AUSTRALIA  375 


the  Australians  of  to-day  we  find  only  single  interments.  A  fire  is  first  lighted  in 
the  narrow  grave,  to  drive  away  all  hurtful  magic,  then  it  is  half  filled  with  leaves, 
on  which  the  body  is  laid  either  stretched  out  or  doubled  up.  It  is  then  secured 
with  sticks  and  covered  with  leaves  and  earth.  The  earth  which  has  been  dug 
out  is  heaped  up  at  the  head  and  the  foot.  Further,  the  grave  is  strewn  with  leaves 
or  red  earth,  and  a  tree-stem  is  laid  upon  it,  or  in  many  cases  a  hut  built,  at  the 
door  of  which  are  placed  the  broken  spears  of  the  dead  man.  In  front  are  three 
posts  with  carvings  and  figures,  and  painted  red  as  a  token  that  vengeance  has 
been  taken  for  the  dead  man.  On  the  Pime  River  a  chief's  body  is  placed  in  a 
hollow  tree,  and  the  departure  of  the  soul  is  encouraged  by  a  whirring  noise  which 
the  bystanders  make.  The  head  lies  to  the  east  on  King  George's  Sound,  to  the 
west  among  the  South  Australians  ;  while  the  West  Australian  practice  varies 
with  the  tribe.  Where  the  body  is  doubled  up,  it  is  tied  by  the  great  toes  or  by 
the  thumb  and  one  "finger  of  each  hand  ;  the  arms  are  thrust  under  the  knees  and 
the  head  bent  over  them  ;  and  the  corpse  is  shrouded  in  a  net  or  a  hide.  Often 
the  beard  and  nails  are  removed  before  burial ;  the  weapons  are  regularly  placed 
with  the  dead. 

Among  many  tribes  a  thread  of  cannibalism  runs  through  the  burial  customs. 
The  Dieyeri,  after  the  "  inquest,"  cut  all  the  fat  from  the  face,  loins,  arms,  and 
stomach,  and  hand  it  round  to  be  consumed  by  the  mourners.  Macdonald  describes 
a  less  savage  custom  on  the  Upper  Mary  River  in  Queensland.  The  dead  body  was 
laid  between  two  piles  of  logs  and  duly  roasted.  When  the  skin  was  black  all  over, 
the  master  of  the  ceremonies  drew  longitudinal  and  transverse  lines  with  chalk 
upon  it,  divided  it  with  a  knife  along  the  lines  from  head  to  foot,  separated  the 
head  from  the  trunk,  and  cut  every  limb  into  pieces.  Meantime  the  rest  kept  up 
a  cannibal  howling  and  gave  themselves  deep  wounds  with  their  battle-axes. 
Finally  the  divided  portions  were  not  eaten,  but  buried.  The  list  of  customs  pre- 
ceding or  following  an  interment  is  in  many  cases  extensive.  Painting  is  frequent ; 
also  women  beat  themselves  with  sticks  till  the  blood  flows  ;  men  pull  their  beards 
out.  On  Encounter  Bay  the  women  scrape  the  earth  on  which  the  body  has  lain 
into  a  heap,  holding  that  the  soul  has  passed  into  the  earth  and  can  only  be  set 
free  by  scraping  it.  In  many  cases  the  mound  is  not  over  the  grave  but  to  one 
side,  the  earth  which  has  been  thrown  up  is  allowed  to  lie,  and  the  walls  of  the 
grave,  which  is  furnished  with  a  side-niche,  are  trodden,  in  at  once  over  the  body. 

The  graves  are  often  conspicuous,  especially  by  the  grave-posts.  Peron  saw 
one  on  Cape  Naturaliste,  in  front  of  which  was  a  semicircle  of  black  and  a  larger 
one  of  white  sand,  with  circles,  triangles,  and  squares,  marked  by  planting  rushes 
in  them.  Similarly  he  saw,  on  either  side  of  a  stream  near  King  George's  Sound, 
a  circular  patch  about  3  feet  in  circumference,  stuck  round  with  eleven  sharp 
spears,  stained  blood-red  with  gum,  the  points  on  either  side  turned  towards 
the  other.  In  the  south  and  east  graves  are  open  clearings  with  paths  to 
them,  or  conical  sandhills  surrounded  by  a  circular  trench  or  three  rows  of  semi- 
circular benches  ;  hard  by  are  posts  with  figures  scratched  on  them.  They  often 
have  huts  or  straw  roofs  built  over  them,  or  they  are  themselves  the  huts  in  which 
the  corpse  reposes.  They  are  also  covered  with  brushwood  to  keep  the  ghost 
from  getting  out.  Lastly,  cases  occur  of  burial  in  ant  heaps.  The  simplest  form 
of  above-ground  burial  is  when  the  dead  are  put  into  hollow  trees.  Near  Port 
Macquarie  the  corpse  is  sewn  up  in  bark,  and  hung  to  a  tree  at  a  height  of  10 


376  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

feet.  Stuart  found  on  a  tree  near  Hawker  Creek  a  child's  coffin,  prettily  carved 
in  wood  to  the  shape  of  a  canoe,  ornamented  with  narrow  incisions  at  the  side, 
covered  with  bark,  and  bound  with  string  made  of  grass.  In  some  places 
cremation  prevails.  On  Portland  Bay  hollow  trees  are  burnt  with  the  body  in 
them  ;  near  Port  Macquarie  the  body  is  hung  up  and  a  fire  made  below  it.  The 
remains  are  a  hindrance  in  travelling,  and  in  the  hands  of  an  enemy  might  be 
employed  for  mischievous  purposes  of  magic,  so  they  are  afterwards  thrown  into 
the  sea.  A  further  variation  is  to  skeletonise  the  body  and  preserve  the  bones. 
The  aborigines  of  Cape  York  take  the  bones  out  of  the  grave  after  some  months, 
and  lay  them  in. a  common  receptacle  in  some  remote  forest ;  and  the  Yardaikin 
about  Somerset  take  them,  after  six  months'  burial,  to  York  Island.  But  all 
bones  are  not  put  away.  Skulls  have  a  use  as  drinking  vessels  ;  and  the  Papuan 
fashion  of  wearing  the  lower  jaw  of  a  slain  enemy  as  a  military  decoration  occurs 
as  met  with  on  Saibai  Island.  Mothers  carry  the  bones  of  dead  children  with 
them  in  their  bundles.  In  order  to  promote  decomposition  the  body  is  exposed 
on  a  platform  to  sun  and  rain,  just  as  about  Port  Moresby  the  corpse  is  laid 
under  a  roof,  and  a  woman  stays  by  it  till  it  has  decayed.  Among  the  tribes 
on  the  Murray  and  on  Encounter  Bay  the  corpse  is  flayed,  and  afterwards 
roasted  and  dried  on  a  frame.  The  relations  crawl  into  the  hut  when  this  takes 
place,  smear  their  bodies,  and  keep  up  a  hideous  howling  day  and  night.  When 
the  body  is  dry  they  drag  it  about  with  them  from  place  to  place  as  a  precious 
treasure.  If  they  become  so  many  as  to  be  a  nuisance,  the  oldest  mummies 
are  fastened  to  a  piece  of  wood  and  hung  up  in  a  tree  too  high  for  the  wild 
dogs  to  reach  them.  The  Central  Australian  tribes  preserve  only  chiefs  or  fallen 
warriors  ;  others  are  merely  buried.  Names  of  dead  persons  are  avoided  ;  people 
who  bear  the  same  name  take  another.  In  Central  Australia,  also,  graves  are 
made  only  in  places  where  a  camp  is  never  likely  to  be  pitched. 

The  Australian  tribes  have  not,  and  never  had,  advanced  to  the  point  of 
forming  states.  Each  family  group  lays  claim  to  a  definite  tract  of  land,  the 
enjoyment  of  which  is  either  claimed  in  common  or  divided  among  individuals 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  produce.  The  first  appears,  in  common  rights  of 
hunting  and  fruit-picking,  while  traces  of  personal  property  are  so  far  developed 
that  single  families  will  assert  preferential  claims  to  a  spring,  a  brook,  a  portion 
of  forest,  and  the  like.  The  two  rights  are  determined  separately  for  special  cases. 
For  ordinary  hunting  all  land  belongs  alike  to  the  community,  but  when  grass  has 
to  be  burnt  the  consent  of  individual  occupants  is  asked.  Even  among  nomad 
tribes  certain  families  have  a  several  right  to  particular  camping-places.  A  number 
of  tribes  will  unite  in  the  common  ownership  of  particular  tracts,  or  in  the  use  of 
phonolite  quarries  for  purposes  of  axe-making. 

Against  foreign  invasion  the  feeling  of  joint  union  is  highly  developed.  The 
external  boundaries  of  many  tribes  are  even  said  to  be  marked  with  stones,  where 
they  do  not  follow  the  course  of  mountains  or  rivers.  Whoever  crosses  them  must 
bear  a  message-stick  as  a  token  of  safe  conduct,  or  in  some  other  way  prove  his 
right  to  do  so.  In  West  Australia,  where  the  tribes  from  the  interior  come  down 
every  year  to  the  coast,  passage  seems  only  to  be  allowed  them  for  that  purpose. 
The  Australians  cannot  at  all  understand  being  treated  as  landless  men,  hence  the 
apparently  unprovoked  attacks  upon  exploring  parties  of  whites. 


THE  FAMILY  AND  SOCIETY  IN  AUSTRALIA  377 

The  actual  differences  between  tribes  as  regards  power,  culture,  or  consideration, 
are  small.  Some,  however,  gain  influence  from  the  reputation  of  having  powerful 
magicians  at  command,  others,  like  the  Cockatoos  of  South  Australia  with  their 
boomerangs,  from  fame  of  their  stronger  weapons.  Little  individuality  is  stamped 
upon  some  populations  by  their  names.  The  simple  name  "  Men  "  is  often  found  ; 
thus  the  South  Australians  between  23°  and  28°  South,  132"  and  134°  East,  are 
called  nothing  but  "  Erilla."  The  name  "  Narrinyeri,"  too,  according  to  Taplin, 
denotes  merely  "  belonging  to  mankind."  Family  groups  take  local  names,  or  are 
called  after  the  group-symbol. 

Nature  being  for  the  most  part  unpropitious,  renders  dispersion  compulsory  ; 
but,  at  the  same  time,  knits  the  bonds  of  the  family  group  closer.  This  favours 
a  high  degree  of  isolation,  which  imparts  to  the  life  of  a  community  a  republican 
or  quasi-federative  character.  Every  family  group  has  its  elective  chief  or  Rupulle, 
who  in  all  contentions  conducts  the  proceedings  as  speaker.  He  had  originally 
to  live  on  the  hunting-ground  and  break  up  the  game.  Generally  he  is  the  eldest, 
strongest,  or  most  expert ;  but  a  bully  is  sometimes  elected.  The  chief  has  a 
council  of  the  oldest  men,  called  by  the  Narrinyeri  Tendi.  His  seat  in  this  is 
called  the  judgment-seat,  and  his  chief  duty  is  to  pass  sentence  for  every  kind  of 
transgression.  If  the  tendis  of  two  tribes  hold  a  joint  meeting,  the  circle  is  often 
composed  of  hundreds  from  one  and  the  other.  Europeans  have  to  give  leave  to 
their  servants,  even  in  the  midst  of  important  work,  in  order  that  they  may  attend 
a  meeting  of  this  kind  either  as  judges,  witnesses,  or  spectators.  In  the  reports 
of  travellers  mention  is  even  made  of  "  princes,"  as  among  the  Yaribandemi  on 
Macleay  River.  But  since  the  chiefship  is  a  post  giving  little  pre-eminence,  it 
often  happens,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it  is  entirely  lacking ;  according  to 
Schiirmann,  the  Port  Lincoln  aborigines  have  neither  a  chief  nor  any  person  of 
recognised  authority.  Among  others  a  certain  influence  is  exercised  by  the  oldest, 
strongest,  and  bravest,  also  by  magicians. 

If  a  native  murder  a  member  of  another  tribe,  his  life  is  forfeited  to  that  tribe. 
The  friends  of  the  slain  man  demand  his  surrender,  and  he  is  speared  to  death. 
Then  they  bury  two  staves  of  a  span  long,  one  to  represent  the  slayer,  one  the 
slain,  and  the  deed  is  expiated.  If  the  slayer  dies  before  vengeance  has  been 
taken,  or  succeeds  in  escaping  punishment,  his  nearest  of  kin  has  to  bear  the 
penalty.  For  lesser  offences  it  suffices  to  run  a  spear,  when  occasion  serves, 
through  the  leg  or  arm  of  the  culprit.  Among  the  Dieyeri  the  arbitrament  of 
arms  is  called  for  even  in  cases  of  theft  or  slander.  Other  penalties,  as  for 
manslaughter,  are  banishment  from  the  tribe,  or  compulsory  withdrawal  to  the 
maternal  kindred.  For  small  trespasses  stripes  are  commonly  inflicted,  increasing 
in  severity,  as  we  go  south,  to  the  point  of  beating  with  a  club  about  the  head. 
But  they  are  glad  to  alleviate  severe  penalties  by  a  touch  of  formality ;  thus  in 
the  case  of  spearing,  the  culprit  is  furnished  with  a  shield,  and  permitted  to  use  it 
to  keep  himself  uninjured. 

If  a  blood-feud  has  to  be  set  on  foot,  it  is  quickly  announced  by  means  of  loud 
cries,  from  the  tone  of  which  the  degree  of  the  crime  can  be  judged  even  a  long 
way  off.  The  very  children  know  if  they  are  in  danger  by  reason,  of  their  kinship 
to  the  guilty  person.  But  there  are  offences  which  are  left  to  be  dealt  with  by 
the  gods.  A  man  who  eats  a  grub  out  of  his  neighbour's  tree  falls  ill ;  if  he  wishes 
to  avert  this,  and  private  vengeance  as  well,  he  sticks  a  bough  in  the  ground  by 


378  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


the  tree.  Among  the  Narrinyeri  a  refined  form  of  revenge  called  neilyerie  was 
introduced  a  generation  ago  from  the  Upper  Murray.  The  person  seeking  revenge 
inserts  the  end  of  a  spear  or  a  sharp  piece  of  bone  into  the  flesh  of  a  decaying 
corpse,  and  lets  it  stay  there  for  some  weeks.  Then  he  anoints  a  bunch  of  hair 
with  the  fat  of  a  corpse,  wraps  it  round  the  point  of  his  dagger-like  neilyerie,  and 
thus  by  a  single  prick  can  inoculate  his  enemy  with  the  cadaveric  poison. 

The  natural  conditions  of  the  land,  unfavourable  as  they  are  to  communities 
of  any  size  or  permanence,  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  food — in  short,  the  hard 
struggle  for  existence,  renders  more  acute  the  distrust  between  man  and  man,  tribe 
and  tribe.  Belief  in  ghosts  aids  to  produce  this  result.  Even  the  return  of 
acquaintances  calls  forth  no  signs  of  joy  ;  it  is  some  time  before  unrestrained  con- 
versation takes  place.  Strangers  are  thought  to  bring  illness  ;  but  if  they  are 
once  received  they  are  perfectly  safe.  Among  the  Dieyeri,  if  a  man  of  rank 
appears  the  warriors  go  to  meet  him  and  make  as  though  they  would  drive  him 
off.  But  he  too  brandishes  his  weapons  ;  both  parties  parry  with  their  shields  ;  he 
is  embraced  and  brought  into  the  camp  to  be  entertained.  Greeting  is  indicated 
by  rubbing  the  breast,  leave-taking  by  extending  the  hands  and  raising  them  to 
the  head. 

We  hear  of  mutual  visits,  of  hospitalities,  of  reunions  for  the  purpose  of  decid- 
ing contested  points,  or  for  trade,  or  at  the  initiation  of  the  youths.  Intercourse 
by  messengers  is  conducted  according  to  definite  rules.  Among  the  South 
Australians  it  is  the  women  who  carry  overtures  for  peace ;  if  the  women  of  the 
opposing  side  return  the  visit  the  quarrel  is  regarded  as  at  an  end.  The  institution 
of  ngia-ngiampe  throws  a  light  upon  the  extent  to  which  any  intercourse  between 
one  tribe  and  another  is  conceived  of  as  an  important  occasion.  The  navel-string 
of  a  child,  tied  up  with  a  bunch  of  feathers,  is  presented  to  the  father  of  a  child  of 
similar  age  in  another  tribe.  The  two  children  are  thenceforth  ngia-ngiampe  to 
each  other ;  they  must  have  no  contact  nor  speech  with  each  other,  but  when 
grown-up  they  act  as  agents  in  the  barter-trade.  The  perforation  of  the  nasal 
septum  is  also  connected  with  the  precautions  for  security  in  dealings  with  neigh- 
bouring tribes.  The  father  of  the  child  suggests  the  operation,  which  is  performed 
at  noon  by  an  old  man  to  the  accompaniment  of  chanting.  While  the  wound  is 
healing  the  boy  executes  the  commission  he  has  to  do,  and  henceforth  he  is  regarded 
as  sacred,  and  is  honoured. 

A  deep  insight  into  the  Australian  mind  is  afforded  by  the  long  list  of  initia- 
tions, which  accompany  the  passage  of  boys  and  girls  to  the  age  of  maturity. 
With  this  is  combined  some  sacrifice  of  a  part  of  the  body,  whether  by  the  knocking 
out  of  teeth  or  the  amputation  of  a  finger.  Besides  these  we  find  the  infliction  of 
pain  by  blows,  scarring,  fasting,  or  compulsory  seclusion  ;  everything  being  referred 
to  divine  institution.  In  the  interior,  boys  creep  with  blindfolded  eyes  by  a  long 
passage  into  the  circular  enclosure  called  bora,  and  for  a  week  after  the  festival 
have  to  look  downwards.  Among  the  Boyne  River  tribes  candidates  have  to  keep 
a  strict  fast  for  three  weeks  before  the  festival  in  a  square  enclosure  within  the 
forest.  About  Cape  York  circumcision  and  the  knocking  out  of  a  tooth  are  followed 
by  a  month  in  the  bush ;  the  youthful  novices  being  painted  white,  and  forbidden 
to  be  looked  upon  by  any  woman  on  pain  of  death.  After  this  they  return  to  their 
parents  wearing  a  piece  of  white  shell  as  a  frontlet,  and  keep  on  their  festival  adorn- 
ments so  long  as  they  hold  together.     The  Narrinyeri  do  not  allow  a  boy  from  his 


THE  FAMILY  AND  SOCIETY  IN  AUSTRALIA 


379 


body- 


is 


tenth  year  to  comb  or  cut  his  hair,  nor  to  partake  of  the  thirteen  kinds  of  game 
that  are  most  easily  procurable  and  most  nutritious.  Tattooing  is  often  undergone 
at  an  early  age  ;  among  the  Encounter  Bay  tribes  by  boys  of  ten  years  old 
When  the  time  for  it  is  come  they  are  seized  without  warning  by  the  men  at 
night,  and  dragged  off  to  a  distant  place ;  the  women  meantime  making  a  show 
of  vigorous  opposition,  and  throwing  fire-brands.  All  the  hair  on  the 
plucked  out  or  singed  off,  the 
hair  of  the  head  is  combed 
with  a  spear,  and  the  body 
smeared  with  oil  and  ruddle. 
After  fasting  and  watching  for 
three  days  and  nights  they 
are  allowed  to  eat  and  sleep  ; 
but  they  must  lay  their  heads 
across  sticks  stuck  in  the 
ground,  drink  only  through  a 
rush,  and  abstain  from  all 
foods  that  are  permitted  to 
women.  They  remain  in  this 
condition,  as  narumbe  until 
their  beards  have  grown  three 
times.  They  are  forbidden 
to  take  a  wife,  but  may  go 
after  any  girl  of  their  own  age. 
Formerly  death  was  the 
penalty  for  a  breach  of  these 
rules;  and  it  is  still  firmly 
believed  that  their  infraction 
will  be  punished  by  growing 
up  ugly  and  by  premature 
grey  hairs.  The  original  object 
of  these  laws  was  perhaps  to 
toughen  the  men  by  means 
of  pain  and  fatigue  ;  but  now 
they  certainly  have  the  con- 
trary effect,  and  the  health 
of  the  young  men  is  often 
completely  undermined  by 
them. 


Australian  magic-sticks.     (Vienna  Museum.) 


But  besides  the  hardening  process,  there  is  a  deeper  meaning  in  these  ceremonies, 
io  begin  with,  they  serve  to  remove  the  boy  from  the  women  ;  which  accounts 
for  the  care,  amounting  to  pedantry,  that  is  taken  to  exclude  women  from  the 
initiatory  rites.  The  instrument,  resembling  the  "bull-roarer"  of  English  boys 
(of  which  a  representation  will  be  found  on  a  later  page),  which  serves  to  indicate 
that  sacred  business  is  going  on  in  the  neighbourhood,  may  not  be  looked  upon 
or  touched  by  women  and  children.  Similarly  women  may  never,  and  lads  not 
till  after  their  last  tattooing,  behold  the  sacred  quartz  implement  used  for  that 
purpose.     The  meaning  of  some  initiations  is  quite  obscure  to  us  ;  as  for  instance 


38o  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

one  described  by  Wyatt,  in  which  an  Adelaide  native  opened  one  of  his  own 
veins,  after  previously  tying  it  with  a  string  of  human  hair,  and  sprinkled  the 
back,  head,  and  breast  of  the  boys  with  blood,  which  was  allowed  to  "  dry  on.'' 
This  took  place  in  a  remote  spot  amid  profound  silence.  Among  certain  tribes 
tattooing,  by  the  manner  of  its  execution,  becomes  of  the  nature  of  an  initiatory 
rite,  though  its  primary  object  was  to  give  greater  suppleness  to  the  arms.  The 
patient  keeps  away  for  some  months  from  female  society  ;  wears  rings  of  opossum- 
skin  on  both  upper  arms,  and  carries  two  sticks  polished  by  long  use. 

Circumcision  is  so  universal  that  to  call  a  man  "  uncircumcised  "  is  an  insult. 
The  nearest  of  kin  arrange  for  and  perform  the  operation.  The  boy  makes  as 
though  he  would  fly.  He  is  caught,  laid  on  the  ground,  rubbed  with  dust,  and 
lifted  by  the  ears  with  loud  yells,  to  rouse  him  from  any  spell  that  may  have  been 
cast  upon  him.  Other  mutilations  are  practised  in  West  and  Central  Australia, 
it  is  supposed  with  the  view  of  reducing  the  power  of  procreation  ;  but  it  is 
uncertain  if  they  have  this  effect. 

In  the  case  of  girls  also,  the  passage  from  childhood  to  womanhood  is  celebrated 
with  initiatory  rites  and  sacrifices.  They  are  secluded  and  have  to  fast  and  undergo 
painting.  Among  the  Larrakia  of  North  Australia  the  girls  on  the  approach  of 
maturity  are  swathed  in  bark  and  kept  in  a  hut  for  three  weeks  before  the  ceremony. 
Women  have  the  top  joint  of  the  right  forefinger  cut  off ;  and,  in  commemoration 
of  special  events,  have  teeth  knocked  out  or  a  finger  amputated.  Cicatrisation 
in  them  involves  a  smaller  portion  of  the  body  than  in  men. 


§  14.  THE  TASMANIANS 

Physical  resemblance  to  the  Melanesians — Dress — Dwellings— Navigation — Weapons — Funeral  customs- 
Superstition — Extinction  of  the  race. 

Tasmania  or  Van  Diemen's  Land  was  formerly  deemed  to  be  a  portion  of  Australia, 
and  therefore  the  natives  of  these  two  regions  were  regarded  as  in  all  essentials 
conformable.  But  this  is  not  entirely  the  case.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
both  are  on  an  equally  low  level  of  culture ;  but  a  distinction  is  evident  in  the 
bodily  characteristics,  wherein  the  Tasmanians  showed  an  approach  to  the 
Papuan  type. 

The  bodily  appearance  of  the  Tasmanians  appeared  at  one  time  to  experi- 
enced observers  far  from  miserable.  Cook  describes  them  as  for  the  most  part 
slim,  of  average  stature,  woolly-haired  like  the  aborigines  of  New  Guinea,  but 
without  the  flat  noses  and  thick  lips  ;  their  features  very  far  from  disagreeable. 
The  children  were  even  pretty,  the  women  at  least  not  repellent.  The  accurate 
description  which  Cook's  surgeon,  Anderson,  has  given  of  the  natives  of  Adventure 
Bay  has  in  its  main  points  been  confirmed  by  the  best  observers.  The  colour  of 
their  skin  was  a  blackish  grey,  not  so  dark  as  that  of  the  Africans  ;  their  hair  was 
woolly  arid  divided  into  tufts  like  that  of  the  Hottentots' ;  the  nose  full  and  broad 
but  not  flat ;  the  eyes  of  medium  size,  the  expression  of  them  not  remarkably 
lively  or  sharp,  but  open  and  frank  ;  the  mouth  wide,  and  surrounded  by  a  thick 
beard  smeared  with  grease  and  ruddle.     Their  build  was  in  general  well-propor- 


THE    TASMANIANS 


381 


tioned,  though  the  belly  was  rather  strongly  prominent ;  in  some  degree  owing  to 
their  favourite  attitude  with  the  upper  part  of  the  body  thrown  backward,  and  one 
hand  across  the  back  grasping  the  other  arm  as  it  hung. 

Cook  and  Anderson  found  the  Tasmanians  in  a  state  of  absolute  nudity. 
For  ornament  narrow  strips  of  hide  were  wound  several  times  round  the  neck,  like 
string,  or  pieces  of  hide  wrapped  round  the  ankles.  The  women  had  a  kangaroo 
skin  in  its  natural  condition  tied  round  the  back  and  loins,  but  only  for  carrying 
the  children  on  their  backs,  it  did  not  cover  the  lower  part  of  the  body.  When 
travelling  they  also  wore  mocassins  which  were  not  found  among  the  Australians. 
Beside  the  scars  on  the  body,  as  in  the  men,  the  women  had  their  whole  head 


4  )  T  A-.l  ^^fJLa^ 


William  Lanney,  the  last  Tasmanian.     (From  a  photograph. ) 

shaven,  or  at  least  a  tonsure.  The  painting  of  the  body  and  the  powdering  of 
the  hair,  which  was  worn  by  the  men  stiffly  frizzed  with  red  dust,  are  spoken  of ; 
also  the  anointing  with  fat  and  adornment  with  strings  of  shells.  Red  feathers 
were  popular,  beads  and  coins  were  accepted  with  satisfaction,  iron  was  not 
highly  valued.  The  dwellings  of  the  Tasmanians  consisted  of  wretched  huts. 
The  huts  showed  great  variety  ;  this  want  of  a  definite  type  may  always  be 
regarded  as  a  sign  of  low  development.  There  were  also  huts  built  in  a  hemi- 
spherical shape  of  stems  and  woven  boughs,  temporary  tents,  wind  screens  made 
of  boughs,  or  grass  piled  up  upon  poles  but  no  real  villages  ;  the  bark  huts  were 
mostly  placed  on  accessible  points  of  the  coast,  in  their  neighbourhood  were  great 
heaps  of  shells. 

The  Tasmanians   are   more  closely  connected  with   the   true  Australians  in 
the  degree  of  culture  possessed  by  them  than  anthropologically.     One  piece  of 


382 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


furniture  which  they  had  and  the  Austrahans  had  not  was  the  head -cushion  of 
skin.  In  spite  of  the  climate  they  were  no  more  of  agriculturists  than  the 
Australians,  but  their  shores  and  their  forests  provided  flesh  food  in  abundance. 
Their  greater  energy  resulted  from  their  better  nourishment.  They  seem  to 
have  cooked,  like  the  Australians,  with  hot  stones.  Their  canoes  were  merely 
broad  raft -like  vessels  made  of  bark  or  strong  reeds.  Accordingly  they  never 
ventured  far  out  to  sea,  nor  had  they  always  paddles  to  propel  their  boats, 
often  using  only  spears  ;  they  could  however  swim  and  dive  well.  They  lived  by 
preference  on  shell -fish ;  their  weapons  differed  materially  from  those  of  the 
Australians  ;  they   had    no    boomerangs,  throwing- sticks,   or    bows   and    arrows. 


Truganina,  the  last  Tasmanian  woman.      (From  a  photograph. ) 

They  chiefly  used  long  wooden  spears,  a  sharpened  missile  stick  half  a  yard 
long,  wooden  clubs,  and  for  chopping  and  cutting  rudely  chipped  flakes  of 
stone.  They  lived  almost  constantly  in  a  state  of  war,  but  they  were  not 
man-eaters,  and  they  treated  their  women  better  than  did  the  Australians.  The 
6000  or  8000  estimated  inhabitants  of  the  pre-European  time  were  divided  into 
numerous  tribes.  Their  modes  of  burial  remind  us  of  Australia,  and  also  the 
manifold  ways  even  in  this  limited  space  of  burning,  of  cremation,  burial,  putting 
away  in  hollow  trees,  building  dead  huts  over  the  grave.  The  Tasmanian 
character  displayed  itself  to  this  whites  as  in  the  main  cheerful  and  good 
humoured ;  their  mental  endowments  were  tolerable.  Too  late  was  education 
allowed  to  spread  among  the  remains  of  this  unhappy  race,  and  too  -  late  was 
it  recognised  that,  as  was  expressed  by  Mr.  A.  R.  Wallace,  we  had  here  to  do  with 
a  race  having  dispositions  towards  progress  to  which  civilization  gave  no  time 
to  bring  its  dispositions  to  perfection. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS  383 


The  5000  aborigines  living  in  Tasmania  in  181  5  had  fallen  to  16  by  i860. 
In  order  to  atone  to  the  remainder  for  the  injustice  that  had  been  done  them,  the 
small  band  was  assembled  at  Oyster  Cove,  on  the  east  side  of  the  island,  and 
placed  under  the  care  of  a  protector  of  the  aborigines,  and  provided  with  all 
necessaries  of  life.  But  by  1876  the  Tasmanian  stock  became  extinct  in  the 
woman  whose  portrait  is  given  on  the  preceding  page. 


§  IS.  RELIGION    OF    THE    AUSTRALIANS 

Indistinctness  of  religious  conceptions — Attempts  at  cosmogony — The  creative  god — Gods  of  the  stars — 
Secondary  creators — Gods  who  return  to  Heaven — Beast  legends — Life  after  death— Ghosts— Other 
superstitions — Magicians — Sacred  stones  and  wood — Plongge — Magicians  and  physicians — Changes  in 
religious  matters. 

The  religious  conceptions  of  the  Australians  give  the  impression  of  decadence  and 
corruption.  There  is  a  sound  about  them  not  only  as  of  an  earlier  time  but  as  from 
foreign  regions,  confused  indeed  and  indistinct,  but  with  a  ring  of  Melanesian  and 
Polynesian  tradition.  Some  say  that  they  have  heard  talk  of  a  supreme  being, 
the  giver  of  good,  in  the  north  under  the  name  Koyan,  in  the  south  under  that  of 
Nurundere  and  Baiamai,  but  we  can  attach  no  great  weight  to  this.  In  these 
rudimentary  mythologies  the  supreme  god  is,  as  a  rule,  the  one  to  whom  the 
creation  of  the  world  is  ascribed  without  his  being  self-created,  and  who  was  from 
the  beginning  in  heaven  before  the  hero  gods  existed.  Such  appears  to  be  the 
Momaincherclu  of  the  Adelaide  tribes.  The  second  god,  Monana,  ascended  to 
heaven  only  later  by  means  of  spears  thrown  up  one  after  another ;  to  him  the 
creation  of  man  was  ascribed.  Among  the  West  Australians  we  meet  with  a 
certain  Motogon  as  creator  who  produces  the  earth  by  calling  and  blowing.  In 
South  Australia  Barim  forms  the  world  by  drawing  the  plan  of  it  instead  of  by 
speaking.  We  are  reminded  of  him  by  the  name  of  Boorambin,  the  son  of  the 
South  Australian  Baiamai.  Also  the  Dieyeri  legend  that  the  moon  created  the 
world  at  the  request  of  their  head  god  Moora-moora,  points  to  the  notion  of  a 
second  creator  other  than  the  chief  deity. 

The  chief  distinction  between  Australian  and  Polynesian  mythology  is  that 
the  former  does  not  grow  up  from  its  root  in  cosmogony  to  any  fixed  genealogy, 
any  recognised  history,  any  cycle  of  divine  legends.  We  do  indeed  meet  with 
attempts  in  this  direction,  but  they  have  made  no  progress.  The  Dieyeri  refer 
the  origin  of  the  sun  to  man's  need  of  hunting  the  emu  ;  they  used  to  pray  in 
their  dances  that  Moora-moora  would  cast  heat  upon  the  earth,  and  so  he  created 
the  sun.  The  aborigines  of  Encounter  Bay  say  that  the  sun  passes  every  evening 
through  spirits  in  long  double  rank,  who  implore  his  favour.  Whoever  obtains  it 
bestows  upon  him  the  skin  of  a  red  kangaroo,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  he 
returns  in  red  robes.  The  same  thoughtful  people  make  the  moon  grow  thin  by 
reason  of  her  long  stay  in  the  company  of  man  ;  the  supreme  being  has  her  driven 
away,  she  conceals  herself,  and  meantime  obtains  new  strength  by  eating  roots. 
The  South  Australians  regard  the  moon  as  the  sun's  husband,  and  say  that  the 
wife  kills  the  husband  at  every  new  moon ;  and  both  here  and  in  West  Australia 


3S4  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

it  is  believed  that  the  two  once  lived  on  earth  and  produced  children.     Similar 
human  traits  are  recounted  of  the  stars. 

Other  legends  contain  traces  of  other  deities,  and  of  contact  with  Polynesian 
myths.  Many  districts  received  their  names  from  Nganno,  who  then  changed 
himself  into  a  sea  monster.  He  is,  perhaps,  the  same  who  came  from  heaven  as 
Uandu,  and  made  the  Murray  River.  Narrundere  created  the  fishes  in  the  pond 
of  Tulurung  by  throwing  stones  in,  and  fished  up  the  rocky  islands  called  Witung- 
enggui  with  a  net ;  thunder  is  the  voice  of  his  anger,  which  bellows  from  the 
rainbow.  In  this  connection  of  earth  with  heaven  there  is  a  distinct  Polynesian 
ring. 

From  the  fundamental  idea  that  the  souls  of  the  departed  go  to  the  stars,  or 
become  stars,  myths  sprang  up,  bringing  spiritual  beings  into  connection  with  the 
stars.  Thus  it  is  believed  in  New  South  Wales  that  souls  continue  to  live  in  the 
clouds,  in  the  south  that  they  become  stars.  The  construction  of  constellations 
is  an  easy  result  from  the  belief  of  the  Encounter  Bay  natives  that  the  souls  up 
above  leave  their  huts  in  the  evening  and  go  about  their  business  as  they  formerly 
did  on  earth.  The  Milky  Way,  for  example,  appears  as  a  stream  or  a  row  of 
huts,  where  the  tribes  profess  to  be  able  plainly  to  recognise  the  ash-heaps  and 
the  ascending  smoke.  Falling  stars  are  the  children  of  the  stars  ;  the  rainbow,  in 
which  the  Adelaide  tribes  distinguish  the  outer  and  inner  bows  as  male  and 
female,  rises  from  the  clouds  as  smoke.  The  moon  is  counted  a  good  star,  the 
sun  a  bad  one,  and  accordingly  the  power  over  evil  of  many  kinds  is  ascribed  to 
the  sun  and  its  brethren.  One  who  wishes  to  be  healed  spits  in  his  hand  and 
stretches  it  towards  the  sun. 

Among  the  Kamilaroi  Baiamai  appears  as  the  creator  of  men.  He  made 
the  first  man  as  he  rested  on  a  rock  between  the  streams,  and  then  disappeared. 
This  myth  resembles  that  of  the  creation  of  man  in  the  falls  of  the  Moraby ;  the 
nucleus  of  it  is  his  origin  from  the  water.  After  man  had  been  made  the  god 
sent  his  daughter  Karakarak  to  kill  the  serpents ;  she  had  a  stick  which  in 
breaking  produced  fire.  In  the  north-west,  also,  the  creation  of  fire  was  connected 
with  a  fire-god,  but  he  was  worshipped  there,  not  in  the  person  of  the  daughter  of 
the  god  of  heaven,  but  beside  her.  Among  many  tribes  the  lizard  comes  into  the 
legend  of  the  creation  of  man.  We  hear  of  Tarrotarre,  a  god  in  the  shape  of  a 
lizard,  who  divided  the  sexes  and  created  man  and  woman.  The  spirit  cut  off  one 
lizard's  tail,  and  the  lizard  went  upright.  Then  he  made  them  male  and  female 
that  they  might  reproduce  their  species.     This  is  the  belief  of  the  Dieyeri. 

In  other  ways,  also,  the  human  and  the  animal  world  are  variously  inter- 
mingled in  the  legends  of  creation,  and  this  is  connected  with  the  Kobong  or 
tribal  cognisance.  When  the  dancing  ancestors  of  the  Narrinyeri  were  making 
the  hills  and  pools  of  Mutabarringa  the  strong  Kondole  was  invited,  and  as  he 
concealed  his  fire  he  was  wounded  by  Rilballe  in  the  neck  with  a  spear ;  they  all 
laughed,  and  were  accordingly  changed  into  animals,  while  Rilballe  placed  the  fire 
in  the  grasS-tree.  The  creation  of  a  number  of  fish  from  the  bits,  into  which  with 
the  help  of  his  hunting  companions  he  had  torn  a  big  fish,  is  related  of  the  same 
deity.  He  produced  a  species  of  flat  fish  by  throwing  a  flat  stone  into  a  pond. 
Everywhere  it  is  imagined  that  a  more  powerful  race  was  first  created.  To 
Wyungaree,  the  hunting  companion  of  Nurrundaree,  is  ascribed  the  creation  of 
small   kangaroos  by  tearing  up  and  strewing  abroad  the  fragments  of  a  giant 


Australian  Shields. 
2   C 


RELIGION  OF  THE  AUSTRALIANS  387 


kangaroo,  and  corresponding  to  this  the  gods  and  heroes  were,  as  may  be  supposed, 
of  the  nature  of  giants.  To  these  creative  legends  are  attached  a  ^\'hole  list  of 
smaller  beast  legends,  of  which  the  wish  to  interpret  striking  properties  was  the 
ostensible  parent.  But  these,  too,  are  at  bottom  mythological.  In  South  Australia 
it  is  related  that  the  tortoise  originally  had  poisoned  fangs,  and  the  snake  none  ; 
so  the  snake  asked  the  tortoise  to  give  her  its  fangs,  as  she  could  make  a  better 
use  of  them.  The  tortoise  exchanged  its  fangs  for  the  snake's  head,  so  snakes 
have  poisoned  fangs,  and  tortoises  have  snakes'  heads.  The  Narrinyeri  mj-th 
about  the  origin  of  rain  is  original,  and  seems  to  be  a  weakened  form  of  a  deluge 
legend.  An  old  man  lived  with  two  younger  friends  ;  one  day  these,  having  made 
a  good  catch  of  fish,  took  the  best  for  themselves,  and  set  aside  those  of  inferior 
quality  for  the  old  man.  He  went  straightway  into  his  hut  and  shut-to  the  door, 
and  at  once  it  began  to  rain  hard.  He  remained  dry,  while  they  for  punishment 
were  wetted  through.  Afterwards  all  three  were  changed  into  birds,  and  when  the 
old  one  screams  it  is  a  sign  of  approaching  rain. 

A  common  feature  is  the  return  of  a  god  to  heaven  after  accomplishing  great 
things,  and  also  suffering  ill-treatment  on  earth  ;  frequently  he  has  grown  old  as 
well.  Thus  the  Narrinyeri  relate  that  when  Nurrundaree,  after  destroying  his 
fugitive  wives  by  a  flood — other  legends  speak  of  a  metamorphosis  into  rocks — 
had  returned  in  bad  temper,  as  an  aged  man,  to  the  far  west,  he  found  one  of 
his  children  left  behind.  To  him  he  threw  the  end  of  a  rope  attached  to  his  staff, 
and  pulled  him  up.  Since  that  time,  whenever  a  man  dies,  the  god's  son  throws 
him  this  rope.  When  the  dead  persons  reach  the  half-unconscious  ancient,  their 
dwelling-place  is  assigned  to  them,  they  become  alive,  young,  and  sound  again, 
and  receive  wives  according  to  the  number  of  the  tears,  which  show  how  many 
they  left  on  earth.  Just  as  with  the  Oceanians,  the  creation  of  gods  comes  about 
by  the  immediate  promotion  of  the  souls  of  mortals.  Taplin's  informants  professed 
to  recognise  in  Nurrundaree  merely  the  apotheosis  of  a  chief  who  had  led  their  tribe 
to  its  present  place  of  abode.  The  deity  Bedall  seems  to  stand  quite  alone.  Of 
him  it  is  said  in  Queensland,  Bedall  brooded  over  the  clay,  and  made  the  world 
like  a  tortoise.  But  is  not  this  tranquil  god  connected  with  him  of  Moreton  Bay  ? 
There  Buddai  or  Budja,  the  progenitor,  lies  sleeping,  an  old  man,  with  his  head  on 
his  arm,  and  that  buried  in  the  sand  ;  and  as  at  his  former  waking  the  earth  was 
inundated,  so  at  his  next  he  will  swallow  mankind. 

Gods  are  changed  into  beasts,  or  appear  at  whiles  in  beast  form.  Turramullam 
appears  in  company  as  a  snake  ;  Uokol  is  a  demon  who  lives  in  the  water  as  a 
gigantic  serpent ;  and  Tarada,  who  taught  scar-tattooing,  was  changed  into  a  mighty 
kangaroo.  A  large  number  of  demons,  and  especially  the  dreaded  Melapi,  appear 
as  birds  of  the  nature  of  vampires.  Besides  these  there  are  a  number  of  utterly 
absurd  beast-legends.  If  a  boy  tickles  a  dog  till  it  coughs,  the  dog  becomes  the 
boy,  and  the  boy  a  panpandi  tree.  If  you  kill  the  fly  tcnkeiideli  without  uttering 
the  name,  you  will  never  swim  again.      And  many  more  of  the  same  kind. 

If,  as  we  have  seen,  the  funeral  customs  of  the  Australians  point  strongly  to 
a  belief  in  a  life  after  death,  allusions  to  the  same  are  not  lacking  in  their  world 
of  religious  legend.  Soul-myths  are  intimately  entwined  with  their  whole  myth- 
ology. We  find  even  indications  of  a  belief  which  makes  a  distinction  between 
the  shade  or  ghost,  and  the  vapour  which  rises,  or  thought.  To  the  souls  of 
children  also  a  future  life  is  assigned,  even  by  tribes  who  only  mourn  a  short  time 


3S8  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

for  their  children.  Most  frequently  the  idea  is  anthropomorphic,  with  echoes  from 
the  migration  of  souls.  Thus,  in  the  west,  it  is  held  that  the  souls  of  the  departed 
sit  in  trees  and  lament,  but  can  be  charmed  down,  and  pass  completely  into  other 
living  beings.  The  souls  of  ancestors  are  imagined  as  in  relations  of  active  help- 
fulness, and  reckon  as  beneficent  spirits  ;  if  a  whale  comes  ashore  it  is  their  doing. 
Bad  spirits  also  spring  from  the  deceased,  or  the  cunning  and  spiteful  Mani ;  just 
as  apparitions  of  ghosts  are  frequent  near  graves,  and  the  dead  give  harmful  stones 
to  the  sorcerers  for  witchcraft. 

The  Australians  of  Wellington  say  that  white  angels,  or  balumbal,  live  on 
honey  in  the  western  mountains.  This  is  interpreted  of  souls,  and  recalls  how,  as 
with  the  Polynesians,  many  tribes  place  an  island  of  souls  in  the  west,  or  assume 
a  connection  between  water  and  the  next  world.  The  souls  of  the  good  go  to  the 
good  gods,  those  of  the  evil  perish.  The  belief  in  a  judgment-seat  placed  in 
heaven  seems  to  have  existed  among  the  Narrinyeri  from  pre-Christian  times. 
Schurmann  came  across  the  idea  of  Hades  in  the  form  of  a  spacious  canoe,  where, 
quite  in  Polynesian  fashion,  ancestral  souls  lived.  Perhaps  the  consecration  of 
certain  localities  is  connected  with  the  belief  in  abodes  of  souls.  The  widely- 
spread  notion  that  the  dead  become  white  men,  and  return  as  such,  is  met  with 
here  also  ;  indeed  the  natives  have  in  fact  greeted  certain  whites  as  departed 
friends. 

There  is  a  vast  multitude  of  evil  spirits,  and  the  same  was  the  case  in 
Tasmania  ;  the  Bunyip  haunts  the  forest  as  a  spectre,  Kupir  comes  out  of  caves 
to  steal,  Arlak  throttles  people  in  the  dark,  Pukidni  goes  with  them  as  an 
invisible  companion.  Like  the  Malayan  witches,  demons  fly  silently  through  the 
night  air,  but  Mani  approaches  noisily,  seizes  the  hair  and  beard  and  strangles  the 
man.  Club-bearing  giants  are  dreaded  in  the  south  ;  on  the  occasion  of  a  fine 
aurora  australis  in  March  1 8  8 1 ,  Coues's  Queenslanders  were  in  a  state  of  great 
consternation  because  they  took  it  for  the  angry  flames  of  the  malignant  Coochie. 
In  the  belief  of  the  West  Australians,  a  winged  serpent  lives  at  the  bottom  of  the 
water,  causing  sickness  and  ulcers.  For  this  reason  a  great  part  of  Australian 
conduct  is  dependent  on  rules  for  carrying  on  the  fight  with  the  creatures  of  their 
uneasy  fancies,  and  the  chief  task  of  the  medicine-men  lies  in  appeasing  or  combating 
these.  There  exist  most  fantastic  tales  of  alleged  fights  with  evil  spirits  and 
the  like  ;  who  could  venture  to  doubt  them  ?  Europeans  who  have  lived  with 
Australians  have  more  than  once  been  awakened  by  them  in  order  to  take  part  in 
their  night  watch  against  ghosts. 

The  Australian  sorcerers  are  usually  elderly  men  possessing  some  acquaintance 
with  medicine,  and  accurate  knowledge  of  the  traditions  relating  to  the  discovery 
of  persons  who  have  caused  deaths,  to  funeral  initiations  and  conjurations.  Bright 
transparent  stones  are  sacred  amulets  which  the  priests  alone  may  touch  or 
investigate.  It  is  believed  that  the  sorcerers  have  a  stone  or  bone  in  their  stomach 
from  which  they  secretly  import  splinters  into  the  veins  of  those  upon  whom  they 
work  their  art,  and  for  this  reason  the  cure  of  diseases  consists  chiefly  in  the 
extraction  of  these  stones.  This  magic  stone  or  bone  is  introduced  into  the 
sorcerer  by  means  of  a  visit  paid  to  the  spirit-world  whither  they  are  transported 
in  an  ecstasy,  or  else  by  passing  a  night  in  a  fresh  grave.  Besides  this  the 
sorcerers  do  a  great  deal  with  sacred  wood  which  they  obtain  with  incantations 
from  a  tree  supposed  to  possess  gifts  of  healing  or  consecration.     Among  the 


RELIGION  OF   THE  AUSTRAUANS 


Dieyeri,  all  the  sacred  operations  in  which  wood  is  required,  such  as   knocking 

out  the  teeth  or  perforating  the  nasal  septum,  are  performed  with  sticks  of  the 

kayamurra  acacia.     From    this    all    magic   wands    are    prepared,  especially   the 

knotted  stick  called  plongge,  by  touching  with  which  the  breast  of  a  sleeping  man 

he  may  be  caused  to  fall  ill.      For  keeping  the  women  away  from  the  initiation  of 

lads,  a  "  bull-roarer  "  some  ten  inches 

long,  with  its  string  made  of  twisted 

human  hair,  is  whirled   by  the   boys 

so  as  to  cause  a  humming  roar.      It 

is  also  used  in  hunting,  in  order  with 

its  sound  to   drive    up    an    abundant 

■prey.    Ancestral  figures  seem  to  occur 

seldom  amongst  the  Australians,  nor, 

indeed,    are    representations     of    the 

human  figure  at  all  frequently  found. 

There    are,    however,    things    which 

remind    us  of   these  and  of   fetishes, 

such  as  stones    i8    inches    long  and 

covered   with    bark    which     Flinders 

found    on    the    Sir    Edward    Pellew 

Islands  in   the   Gulf   of   Carpentaria. 

In    South    Australia    the    mokani,   a 

stone    wedge    fastened     between    two 

pieces  of  wood  as  handles,  is   said  to 

bewitch   people  —  men    by    touching 

them  with  the  sharp  end,  women  with 

the  blunt  end. 

The  strongest  magic  resides  in 
certain  parts  of  the  human  body  or 
in  the  remains  of  human  food.  Every 
blackfellow  tries  to  obtain,  for  pur- 
poses of  magic,  the  bones  and  the 
back-bones  of  certain  birds  and  fishes 
of  which  some  one  has  consumed  the 
flesh.  By  means  of  these  he  thinks 
that  he  can  acquire  power  over  that 
man  for  life  or  death.  In  order  to 
adapt  the  bones  for  that  purpose 
they  are  first  scraped,  and  then  a 
lump  of  red  ochre,  fish  oil,  the  eye  of  a  fish,  and  the  flesh  from  a  corpse,  are 
stuck  upon  them  and  the  whole  is  laid  on  the  breast  of  a  human  corpse.  Then, 
if  the  other  person  annoys  the  magician,  he  sticks  the  bone  in  the  earth  near 
the  fire  so  that  the  lump  melts  slowly  away  ;  as  it  melts  it  causes  the  man  for 
whom  it  is  intended  to  fall  ill  at  however  great  a  distance.  Human  kidney 
fat  possesses  magical  power  against  evil  spirits,  and  it  is  accordingly  extracted 
from  corpses  and  even  from  living  prisoners. 

The  magicians,  however,  are  not  the  only  doctors  ;  besides  them  there  is  a 
special  physician  class,  and  in  the  west  the  old  women  also  often  practise.     But, 


Australian 


bull  roarers  " — one-fourth  real  size. 
(Berlin  Museum.) 


390  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

as  a  rule,  both  businesses  go  together,  and  it  is  curious  to  see  how  the  magicians, 
under  certain  circumstances,  act  as  rational  nature  doctors.  Among  the  Narrinyeri, 
the  physician  after  exorcism  operates  by  vigorous  pressing  and  kneading  of  the 
suffering  part.  Against  rheumatism  they  use  vapour  baths  over  hot  stones  upon 
which  herbs  previously  wetted  are  laid.  Cold  bathings,  scarification,  blood-letting 
are  also  employed,  but  care  is  taken  that  the  blood  should  never  fall  to  the  ground, 
but  flow  in  a  network  of  crossing  lines  over  the  body  of  another  man.  The  fact 
that  different  doctors  have  each  his  special  remedy  may  have  some  connection 
with  the  kobong ;  one  will  use  a  snake,  another  an  ant,  a  third  seaweed,  which 
they  employ  as  friend  or  protector  on  every  occasion. 

Among  these  races  also,  the  objects  of  veneration  are  subject  to  change. 
Taplin  found  that  the  legends  were  not  nearly  so  firm  and  complete  in  the  popular 
recollection  as  H.  E.  A.  Meyer,  the  missionary,  had  found  them  twenty-five  or 
thirty  years  before.  The  younger  men  of  the  present  generation  know  very  little 
of  them. 


C.  MALAYS    AND    MALAGASIES 

§  1 6.  THE   MALAY  ARCHIPELAGO 

The  Malay  Archipelago  is  the  largest  island  group  of  the  inhabited  earth,  and  both 
by  its  nature  and  by  its  history  a  portion  of  Asia,  the  largest  division  of  the  earth. 
Borneo,  Sumatra,  and  Java,  islands  in  shallow  water  near  the  mainland,  reach  up 
to  Further  India.  On  the  other  side  of  this  western  division  a  deep  channel  forms 
the  border,  cutting  it  off  from  an  eastern  region  which,  in  its  fauna  and  flora, 
tends  rather  to  show  affinities  increasing  from  west  to  east  with  Australian  condi- 
tions. The  connection  between  Asia  and  Australia  is  formed  by  the  two  main 
chains,  Sumatra,  Java,  Timor,  and  Borneo,  Celebes,  Molucca,  New  Guinea,  with 
which  the  Philippines  are  connected  as  a  northern  branch  in  the  direction  of 
Borneo  to  Formosa.  The  races  comprehended  under  the  term  Malays  live  on  these 
islands  from  Further  India  to  the  west  coast  of  New  Guinea.  We  meet  with  them 
even  in  the  Nicobar  Islands  under  Further  Indian,  especially  Burmese,  influences, 
while  a  branch  of  them  peopled  Madagascar. 

The  coast  of  the  archipelago  and  the  islands  off  the  coast  afford  plenty  of 
well-sheltered  anchorage.  The  greater  or  less  degree  of  accessibility  has  here  also 
left  its  mark  upon  the  history  of  the  races.  Towards  the  Strait  of  Malacca 
Sumatra  turns  its  eastern  shores,  approach  to  which  is  invited  by  fertile  lowlands 
and  navigable  rivers.  In  the  Battak  country,  life  was  already  prospering  both  in 
the  interior  and  on  the  gentle  eastward  slopes  before  the  colonists  were  driven  by 
over-population  to  descend  upon  the  wilder  west  coasts.  The  nature  of  the  ground 
is  very  various,  almost  all  the  islands  are  mountainous.  The  smaller  islands,  like 
Lombok  and  Sumbawa,  are  merely  great  volcanoes  ;  nearly  all  the  highest  peaks 
are  volcanic  and  for  the  most  part  active.  In  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of 
these  mighty  chimneys,  which  hurl  out  masses  of  ashes  and  stones,  are  the  most 
fertile  lowlands  with  their  copious  civilization  and  dense  population.  The 
destruction  of  40,000  human  lives  by  the  eruption  of  the  Sumbawa  volcano  in 
1 8 1 5 ,  the  washing  away  of  1 6,000  men  by  the  diluvial  waves  which  followed  the 
eruptions  of  Krakatau  in  1883,  are  no  solitary  instances.  Besides  this  there  are 
devastating  earthquakes  and  cyclones  ;  it  is  indeed  the  chosen  cock-pit  of  the 
destructive  forces  of  Nature.  The  region  from  which  volcanic  activity  is  furthest 
removed  is  found  in  Borneo  and  the  neighbouring  islands  ;  here  hilly  country 
prevails  which  as  it  extends  more  widely  increases  to  lofty  table-lands.  Junghuhn 
ascribes  to  the  distinction  between  mountain  and  lowland  a  considerable  influence 
upon  the  races  of  the  archipelago.  "  The  home  of  the  Battaks,"  he  says,  "  is  a 
plateau  with  a  cool  and  light  air ;  they  have  an  uninterrupted  view  to  the  far 
distance;  their  horizon  is  open,  their  government  is  free.     But  the  Javanese  live 


392  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

in  the  lowlands  concealed  under  the  shadow  of  trees,  they  are  narrow  spirited 
and  cling  pusillanimously  to  their  domestic  hearth."  The  contrast  between 
progressive  coast-races  having  free  intercourse  with  their  neighbours  and  the 
secluded  old-fashioned  races  of  the  interior,  gives  everywhere  a  measure  for  the 
ethnography  of  the  less  cultivated  northern  and  eastern  districts  :  the  Philippines, 
Celebes,  the  Moluccas,  Banda,  and  Timor. 

A  tropical  and  oceanic  position  makes  it  one  of  the  most  distinctly  tropic 
climates  of  the  earth.  In  a  country  where  the  rainfall  is  so  distributed  over  the 
year  that  no  sharply-defined  dry  season  can  be  reckoned,  where  a  deep  alluvial 
soil  retains  the  moisture,  those  steaming  primeval  forests  spring  up  which  have 
been  styled  the  "  gardens  of  the  sun  "  ;  enormous  forcing-houses  full  of  vegetation  ; 
a  great  zoological  garden  full  of  rare  and.  curious  beasts.  But  besides  these,  there 
are  also  regions,  like  the  low  lands  of  Acheen,  with  their  forests  peopled  by 
ancestral  orang-outans,  where  malaria  and  the  impenetrable  rattan  thicket, 
harbouring  its  legions  of  leeches,  have  been  able  to  preserve  a  Malay  kingdom  in 
independence.  In  Sumatra,  the  irregular  but  heavy  rainfall  streaming  down  with- 
out any  monsoon -change,  allows  but  few  of  the  fruit  trees,  which  in  the  neigh- 
bouring Java  offer  such  splendid  produce,  to  thrive.  The  lowland  regions  in  these 
districts  are  traversed  by  streams  the  strength  of  whose  flow  varies  with  the  more 
sharply  distinguished  seasons,  and  their  recurring  inundations  make  the  land 
malarious  and  uninhabitable.  Where  during  the  east  monsoon  you  can  only 
progress  with  labour,  you  may  during  the  west  monsoon  sail  over  broad  sheets  of 
water,  often  right  through  the  forests  of  the  inundated  plains.  Where  tidal  rivers 
prevail,  the  coast  swamps,  also  teeming  with  fevers,  form  belts  of  mangroves  infecting 
even  the  neighbourhood  of  the  cultivated  Samarang. 

The  Malayan  Archipelago  possesses  a  flora  Indian  in  character  and  of  extreme 
variety  in  a  narrow  space.  The  primeval  forest  is  distinguished  by  a  greater 
abundance  of  palms,  many  of  which  man  has  converted  to  his  own  uses.  By  the 
banks  of  the  rivers  grows  the  thick-stemmed  feathery-leaved  true  sago  palm,  one 
of  the  noblest  and  most  useful  of  the  palms,  the  chief  habitat  of  which  is  found  in 
Borneo.  More  than  half  the  sago  used  on  the  earth  is  supplied  by  Sarawak.  In 
the  daily  life  of  the  Malays  the  nipa  palm  {Nipa  fruticans)  is  valuable  as  material 
for  building  and  roofing.  The  slender  areca  palm  encloses  the  homesteads,  and  no 
market  of  the  archipelago  is  without  its  nut,  known  as  the  Penang  nut,  or  the 
sirili  leaves.  The  bamboo  finds  employment  for  the  purposes  of  hut  building,  for 
yokes,  water -vessels,  blow-guns,  and  various  musical  instruments.  The  edible 
banana  is  cultivated  everywhere  ;  the  arenga  palm  affords  the  brown  sugar  of  the 
country.  The  flower  spike  is  chopped  off  and  the  juice  allowed  to  flow  through 
a  bamboo  tube,  it  is  then  evaporated  in  metal  basins  and  partaken  of  as  palm 
wine.  In  the  low  lands  the  coco-palm  is  widely  found  ;  clove  and  nutmeg  also 
belong  to  the  archipelago,  and  the  bread-fruit  tree  to  its  eastern  regions  ;  and  it 
is  one  of  the  most  important  districts  as  regards  the  production  of  coffee,  rice, 
sugar,  spices,  and  tobacco.  Rice  is  the  principal  article  of  food,  especially  in  the 
west,  and  the  native  names  for  it  overthrow  the  theory  that  this  plant  and  its 
cultivation  were  imported  from  India.  Among  fruit  trees  the  durian,  with  its  dark 
leaves  and  lofty  stem,  bears  a  fruit  said  to  be  the  best  on  earth.  The  Musa 
textilis  of  the  Philippines  furnishes  manilla  hemp.  Among  timber  trees,  the  two 
araucarias  of  Borneo  are  of  importance  in  native  architecture.      The  Dyaks  make 


BODILY  CONFORMATION  AND   INTELLECTUAL  LIFE    OF  MALAYS    393 

a  black  varnish  for  colouring  their  teeth  from  Chalcas  paniculata  and  a  sort  of 
Artocarpus.  In  Formosa,  the  mountains  of  the  interior  are  covered  with  the 
camphor  tree  wherever  the  devastations  of  the  Chinese  have  not  penetrated. 
In  Java  and  Borneo  arrow  poison  is  furnished  by  species  of  strychnos  and  antiaris, 
and  the  Malays  flog  thieves  with  freshly  cut  sprigs  of  a  shrubby  stinging  nettle. 

Tracts  of  meadow  and  heath  formed  by  cutting  away  timber  often  have  a 
certain  importance  ethnographically.  In  Formosa  the  Chinese  territory  is  almost 
treeless,  and  is  planted  with  tea,  coarse  grass  taking  the  place  of  the  forest.  In 
the  highlands  of  Sumatra,  the  extent  of  the  grass  land  has  caused  people  to  infer 
earlier  settlements,  since  in  these  regions  nothing  but  cultivation  can  drive  back  the 
forest.  The  nutritious  grass  of  these  clearings  has  caused  them  to  become 
pasturage  for  the  abundant  cattle  and  horses  of  the  Battaks  ;  on  the  other  hand, 
in  Borneo,  the  Dyaks  do  not  venture  across  the  dry  moors  deep  in  sand  and 
sparsely  covered  with  scrub,  unless  wearing  sandals  of  bark. 

The  elephant,  the  rhinoceros,  the  tiger,  and  the  orang-outan  are  sufficient  to 
indicate  the  abundant  fauna  of  these  islands  ;  it  is  greatest  in  Sumatra,  where  the 
elephant  and  tapir  form  a  closer  bond  with  the  continent.  Game  of  all  kinds, 
buffalo,  wild  boar,  roe  and  dwarf  stag,  are  frequent  in  the  less  settled  districts  of 
Borneo  and  the  Philippines,  while  monkeys  and  squirrels  abound  in  the  palm 
forests.  The  shores  afford  fish  and  shell -fish  in  profusion,  and  also  valuable 
trepang  and  tortoise-shell,  which  called  into  existence  from  early  times  a  brisk 
trade  with  China.  The  trepang  fishery  has  brought  Malays  from  Macassar,  as 
far  as  Australia.      Nor  must  we  forget  the  edible  swallow's  nest  of  Java. 


§  17.  BODILY  CONFORMATION  AND   INTELLECTUAL 
LIFE  OF  THE  MALAYS 

The  Malay  race— Comparison  with  the  Polynesians— The  true  Malays  and  the  Alfurs— Social  and  foreign 
influences- Indian,  Chinese,  Arabic,  and  European— Character— The  civilized  and  the  savage  Malay- 
Religious  notions— Intellectual  capacity— Language— Writing— Literature— Art— Dances  and  games. 

The  full  description  which  we  have  given  of  the  physical  appearance  of  the 
Polynesian  races  makes  it  almost  superfluous  to  do  the  same  for  the  Malays,^ 
since  both  belong  to  one  stock.  However  far  they  may  have  separated  geographi- 
cally and  ethnographically,  they  form,  in  respect  of  bodily  characteristics  and 
language,  one  Malay  and  Polynesian  group,  though  an  admixture  of  dark  negroid 
blood  is  not  absent  from  the  western  Malays  as  far  as  Malacca.  But,  on  the 
whole,  the  population  of  the  Malay  Archipelago  has  preserved  the  character  of 
the  light  brown,  straight-haired,  slim  race  of  medium  stature,  in  greater  purity  than 
that  of  Polynesia,  which  being  numerically  less  and  further  from  the  point  of  origin, 
is  for  both  reasons  more  accessible  to  effective  crossing. 

The  colour  of  the  Malays  may  be  called  light  brown,  though  there  are  varia- 

'  The  name  Malay  denoted  originally  a  small  tribe  of  Sumatra.  In  Valentyn's  time  it  was  applied  e^ecially 
to  the  tribe  in  the  gold  region  of  Sungei  Pagu,  but  had  already  migrated  to  the  coasts  of  Borneo,  Sulu,  Ternate, 
and  Tidor,  with  the  emigrants  from  Menangkabor  and  Malacca.  In  the  mouth  of  Europeans  *«  "^0=' 
civilized  race  gave  its  name  to  the  whole  population  of  the  archipelago.  The  etymology  of  the  name  Malay 
is  obscure. 


394  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

tions.  The  people  of  Acheen  and  the  Battaks  are  dark  compared  with  Javanese 
or  Dyaks,  and  in  general  a  dark  tint  of  skin  is  more  frequent  in  the  east  than  in 
the  west.  Many  Javanese  are  straw  coloured,  but  the  differences  are  by  no 
means  great,  and  tend  to  vanish.  Considering  the  influence  which  social  rank 
exercises  here  also  upon  physical  characteristics,  they  only  acquire  a  deeper 
interest  where  they  are  combined  with  other  peculiarities.  The  Acheenese  and 
the  Battaks  are  alike  bigger  and  stronger  than  their  neighbours ;  the  light 
Javanese  are  smaller,  while  the  still  lighter  Formosans  and  the  Tagal  half  breeds 
of  the  Philippines,  with  their  mixture  of  Chinese  blood,  are  better  grown  than 
their  Tagal  neighbours.  The  hair  is  more  decidedly  straight  than  among  their 
Polynesian  kinsfolk  ;  similarity  with  the  Polynesians  is  marked  as  regards  the 
curly  but  not  woolly-haired  races  in  Ceram,  Gilolo,  Timor,  and  Amboyna,  all 
these  instances  occurring  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  archipelago.  On  the  other 
hand,  harsh  straight  hair,  according  to  Riedel,  characterises  the  people  of 
Timorlaut ;  among  the  Dyaks  we  find  wavy  hair  with  a  Semitic  type  of  face. 
In  the  region  of  transition  the  hair  is  the  most  striking  of  all  marks  of  race,  even 
for-  the  natives  themselves,  whence  the  name  "  Papua."  When  we  get  west  of 
the  Aru  and  Key  Archipelagos  we  do  not  meet  with  true  curly  hair  again  till  we 
are  among  the  Orang-Panggang  and  Semang  in  the  interior  of  the  Malay 
peninsula.  In  Ceram,  Timor,  and  Allor,  the  prevailing  hair  is  rather  woolly 
than  curly,  forming  wigs  sticking  out  in  every  direction,  of  vast  circumference ;  it 
fills  a  wide  zone  between  the  Malayan  and  Papuan  regions,  and  is  connected  by 
Virchow  with  the  Veddahs  in  the  north  and  the  Australians  in  the  south.  In 
their  stature,  5  ft.  to  5  ft.  8  in.,  the  Malays  are  inferior  to  the  Polynesians ;  the 
smallest  seem  to  belong  to  Amboyna.  The  form  of  skull  is  mainly  brachycephalic, 
even  to  excess,  but  this  is  chiefly  by  artificial  deformation.  Long  heads  have 
been  proved  to  exist  among  the  Igorrotes  of  Luzon  and  the  Ceramese,  medium 
in  the  Moluccas  and  Timor,  that  is  in  the  east. 

The  question  as  to  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  archipelago  has,  except  so 
far  as  regards  the  poor,  hardly  recognisable  remains  of  it  formed  by  the  dark 
woolly-haired  men  to  the  eastward,  been  temporarily  removed  from  the  programme 
of  ethnography.  Papuan  elements  have  permeated  freely,  especially  in  Ceram, 
Tidor,  Ternate  ;  expressions  like  bastard  Malays,  bastard  Ceramese  are  familiar 
to  students  of  the  subject.  Papuas  have  invaded  these  regions  as  pirates  and 
been  imported  as  slaves.  The  origin  of  the  scattered,  dark,  wavy,  and  woolly- 
haired  people  on  the  east  side  of  Luzon,  in  the  interior  of  the  Malay  Peninsula, 
and  on  Timor,  is  uncertain  ;  if  the  Orang-Semang  of  Malacca,  whom  Stavens 
has  recently  regarded  as  hybrids  of  negroid  races  with  Malays,  owe  their  Malayan 
resemblance  to  the  neighbourhood  of  civilization,  his  idea  has  less  anthropological 
value.  The  same  is  the  case  with  the  Negritos  of  the  Philippines,  and  perhaps 
the  Igorrotes  stand  nearer  to  the  original  population  than  they  do.  The  names 
Negritos  and  Alfurs,  which  were  once  thought  to  imply  negroid  elements,  often 
indicate  in  reality  only  straight-haired  Mongoloid  people  in  a  low  state  of 
civilization. 

The  unity  of  the  Malayan  races  seems,  at  the  very  fifst  glance,  to  be  supported 
by  their  outward  appearance.  They  are  a  highly-mixed  race,  and  they  have 
been  pointed  to  as  the  best  example  of  an  artificially  formed  stock,  and  compared 
with  the  results  of  recognised  race-breeding.      In  any  case  there  certainly  remains 


BODILY  CONFORMATION  AND  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE   OF  MALAYS    395 


conspicuous  a  widespread  similarity  and  symmetry  of  form.  Where,  in  islands 
like  Sumatra,  traces  appear  of  two  strata  of  population,  the  only  evidence  for  this 
is  to  be  found  in  language  and  customs.  Countless  interminglings  have  taken 
place  here,  Malays  and  Battaks  mutually  pressed  each  other  on  to  the  high 
plateaus  in  Sumatra,  and  retired  to  the  west  and  east  coasts.  The  Lubus  say 
that  they  migrated  from 
Eastern   Sumatra    in    three  iit|j." 

bands,  the  Philippine  tribes 
sought  the  coast  under  the 
attacks    of    savage    moun- 
tain tribes,  and  others  again 
for  the  sake  of  trade  and 
commerce ;    volcanic    erup- 
tions,   earthquakes,     hurri- 
canes, inundations,  famine, 
drove  thousands  into  distant 
regions,  and  caused  deserts 
which  had  to  be  replenished 
again  by  immigration  from 
without.     The  Mahometan 
invasion   forced   the    Bajus, 
a  small   people    of   Sunda, 
on  to  the  almost  inaccessible 
forest  plateau  of  Pangeleran. 
The    Orang-laut,    a    blend 
of  homeless  people,  chiefly 
with   Malay    elements,   are 
the  Vikings  of  these  seas, 
and  their  traces   are  found 
almost  without  exception  in 
the    islands.      Like     them 
were  the  Sikas  of  Borneo 
and  the  Wajus  of  Celebes. 
The  genuine  Malays,  even 
when    they    had    acquired 
settled  dwelling-places,  took 
to   a    sea   life    by    inclina- 
tion.     Fishery,  trade,  and  .     .  c    ^       a 
piracy  are  among  their  favourite  occupations,  their  agriculture  is  impertect,  and 
if  there  ever  were  pastoral  races  among  them  there  are  none  now. 

A  survey  of  all  these  influences  makes  it  impossible  to  avoid  the  conviction 
that,  however  homogeneous  the  population  may  be  on  the  surface,  we  must,  in 
considering  it,  assume  repeated  mixtures.  This  consideration  is  necessary,  not 
theoretical,  and  is  always  gaining  in  force.  Thus  we  have  like  and  unlike  elements 
constantly  permeating  each  other,  and  as  the  result,  a  progressive  wearing  down 
of  differences.  .     .  ^ 

Further,  racial  divergences  in  two  directions  have  been  due  to  social  mtluences. 
Hard  and  regular  labour  stamps  particular  peoples  with  the  traits  of  civilization 


A  Battak  of  Sumatra.     (From  a  photograph 


396 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


almost  to  the  point  of  malformation.  Thus  the  Milanos  of  Borneo  are  far  inferior 
to  the  Malays  in  stature  and  in  regularity  of  feature.  They  are  light-coloured, 
but  the  tint  is  often  unhealthy.  Passing  their  whole  lives  in  treading  or  pressing 
sago  from  the  pith  of  the  palm,  they  get  broad  feet ;  they  are  thick-set  and  dwarfish. 
The  Javanese  and  Madurese,  highly  cultivated,  and  exposed  for  centuries  to 
Indian,  Chinese,  and   European  influences,  are  of  a  more  elegant  and  dignifjed 

build  than  their  neighbours. 
That  the  "  Orang-laut,  the 
maritime  Malay  of  the 
peninsula,  who  spend  most 
of  their  existence  on.  the 
water,  should  be  dark- 
coloured,  is  but  natural. 
Forest  and  mountain  tribes 
are  changed  by  their  wild, 
penurious,  irregular  life. 
Thus  too,  the  Lubus,  the 
Utos,  and  to  some  extent 
the  Bajus,  also  the  various 
tribes  of  the  Philippines, 
whom  the  Spaniards  incor- 
rectly lump  together  under 
the  name  of  Igorrotes,  are 
very  pariahs  in  outward 
appearance.  But  it  will  not 
do  to  base  divisions  into 
races  and  sub-races  on  such 
slight  variations. 

What  we  must  firmly 
hold  is  the  profound  effect 
of  influences  from  the  con- 
tinent of  Asia  upon  the  more 
westerly  regions ;  whereby 
the  Papuan  affinities  will,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  be  more 
noticeable  in  the  east.  From 
East  Java,  the  seat  of  the 
true  Javanese  population, 
which  does  not  belie  its 
Indian  schooling,  civilizing  influences  radiated,  affecting  profoundly  not  only  intel- 
lectual activity  but  also  agriculture  and  manufactures.  Indian  traces  in  Borneo, 
Sulu,  Sumatra,  the  Philippines,  most  of  all  in  the  ruins  of  Bali,  point  back,  both 
in  speech  and  in  writing,  to  the  Indian  kingdoms  in  Java.  Beside  these  there 
was  in  Sumatra,  as  is  shown  by  the  very  independence  of  the  Battak  writing,  a 
central  point,  perhaps  of  less  grandeur,  but  of  considerable  importance.  Fantastic 
as  it  is,  the  Malayan  chronicle  has  some  ground  for  dividing  the  world  into  the 
three  empires  of  Rum  (that  is  Rome  including  Constantinople),  China,  and  Pulo 
Mas  or  the  Golden   Island,  the  empire  of  Menangkabau.     Probably  Malays,  or 


A  Dyak  of  Borneo.     (From  a  photograph 
in  the  Damann  Album. ) 


BODILY  CONFORMATION  AND  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE   OF  MALAYS    397 


Javanese,  or  both,  were  the  agents  in  bringing  here  the  elements  of  the  higher 
civilization.     Malay  traces  in  Borneo  testify  that  not  every  kingdom  which  tradi- 
tion and  history  show  to  have  existed  there,  owed  its  foundation  to  the  Chinese 
only.     The  soil  of  Sumatra,  too,  gives  up  in  increasing  quantity  sculptures  of 
Indian  Brahmanic  character.     Throughout  the  Western  Archipelago  the  Malays 
are  only  poor  foreigners  upon  a  territory  once  rich  in  culture,  whence,  down  to  the 
fifteenth  century,  noble  temples  and  palaces  rose. 
W.  von  Humboldt  found  it  probable,  from  a  com- 
parative study  of  the  language,  that  there  was  an 
old  connection  between  the  Malay  races  and  those 
of  the   Sanskrit  stock.     Then,  since  the  home   of 
the  genuine  Malays  must  be  sought  in  Sumatra,  the 
tradition  of  relations  between  that  island  and  India 
gains  in  significance,  and  therewith  the  assumption 
of  several   centres  whence   Indian   civilization   was 
diffused,  becomes  probable.      In  point  of  date  the 
Brahman  foundations  in  Java  and  Sumatra  must  fall 
near  together.     At  present  only  the  Klings,  who  are 
Tamils,  are  strongly  represented  in  Malacca  and  Java. 
Chinese  influence  is  greater  than  appears  upon 
the   Malay    population.     The    Chinese    drives    no 
propaganda,   and   does   not   put   himself   forward ; 
but  his  effect  goes  all  the  deeper.     Formosa  and 
Manilla  are  witnesses  to  the  progress  of  the  China- 
man.     The    Chinese -Tagal    hybrids    are    a    very 
numerous  race,  extraordinarily  efficient  and  superior 
to  the  half-breed  of  European  blood.     Even  in  a 
number  of  the  Philippine  peoples,  such  as  Tinguians 
and  Itanegs,  Chinese  blood  is  suspected.      Hogan 
reckons  300,000  Chinese  half-breeds  in  the  Dutch 
East   Indies.      Chinese    trade    is    known    to   have 
reached  Java,   Sumatra,  and    Malacca    before    the 
end  of  the  tenth  century  of  our  era.      Political  rela- 
tions, amounting  to  dependence,  came  about  between 
the  small  island  states  like   Sulu  and  China.      In 
Borneo  actual   kingdoms   sprang   from   the    settle- 
ments of   Chinese   gold-diggers.     Banca,  Billiton, 
and  the  tin  districts  of  Malacca,  on  the  mainland,  '^^^^;:^^\:^^-Zi  \Z^. 
were,  and  still  are,  worked  only  with   the  aid   of      holm  Ethnographical  Collection.) 
Chinese    organisation.      The  sago  trade  and  sago 

refining,  the  tortoise-shell  and  trepang  trades,  may  almost  be  regarded  as  Chinese 
monopolies ;  and  still  more  the  opium  trade,  which  even  forty  years  ago  was 
in  the  hands  of  pure  Malay  tribes  in  the  peninsula. 

Since  the  fifteenth  century  the  Arabs  have,  in  spite  of  their  small^  numbers, 
acquired  a  great  moral  importance  as  bearers  of  Islam.  With  the  multitude  they 
are  undoubtedly  in  the  greatest  esteem.  It  is  hard  to  say  whether  a  Chinese  or 
an  Arab  is  better  at  trading  ;  but  as  a  strict  Mussulman  the  Arab  certainly  holds 
the  more  important    social    position.       In    spite    of   opposition   on   the   part   of 


39S  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

Christian  missionaries,  Islam  has,  during  recent  years,  acquired  alrnost  exclusive 
possession  of  wide  regions  in  the  interior  of  Sumatra  ;  and  the  eastern  Sulu  Islands 
have,  for  a  long  time,  been  rightly  called  the  Mecca  of  the  East. 

Europeans  have  only  founded  settlements  in  these  beautiful  tropic  lands.  In 
Java  or  Celebes,  as  in  India,  there  are  but  few  Europeans  who  are  willing  to  finish 
their  lives  in  the  country  and  found  a  family.  People  go  there  merely  to  govern 
and  to  make  money,  especially  to  the  Dutch  East  Indies.  The  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  have  assimilated  themselves  much  better  to  the  natives,  and  the 
Spanish  Tagal  half-breeds  in  the  Philippines  may  be  reckoned  by  the  hundred 
thousand.  It  is  not  clear  whether  Nature  forbids  the  formation  of  a  mixed  race 
from  Germans  and  Malays  ;  Riedel  found  in  Kiser  a  half-breed  colony  of  Dutch, 
French,  and  Germans,  dating  from  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  but  the  climate 
prevents  northern  Europeans  from  taking  deep  root.  For  this  reason  the  influence 
of  Europeans  has  done  very  little  good  in  the  richest  countries  of  the  archipelago. 
The  native  was  there  only  to  be  used  and  used  up,  not  to  be  improved.  Indigenous 
trade  was  made  to  serve  foreign  interests  ;  agriculture  and  industry  were  supported 
only  so  far  as  they  promised  immediate  profit.  The  only  benefit  conferred  was 
peace,  under  the  protection  of  which  the  population  increased,  and  still  increases, 
in  Java,  Madura,  and  Celebes  ;  in  recent  times  also  with  extraordinary  rapidity 
in  Sumatra. 

The  fundamental  traits  of  the  Malay  character  have  much  resembling  the 
Mongol  ;  he  is  gentle,  peaceable,  quiet,  and  civil,  submissive  to  authorities,  and 
rarely  disposed  towards  crime.  But  to  this  must  be  added  a  tendency  towards 
suspicion  and — its  twin  brother — lack  of  frankness.  Other  points  are  taciturnity, 
quietness  in  assemblies,  formality  in  intercourse.  The  free  Malay  is  marked  with 
a  more  savage  stamp  ;  many  tribes  show  a  warlike  strain,  as  evidenced  in  the  life 
of  piracy  which  some  follow,  the  difficulty  of  subjugating  many  Battak,  Alfur,  and 
Tagal  races,  and  the  excellence  of  the  soldiers  from  Amboyna,  Macassar,  Madura, 
even  Java.  Concealed  savagery  often  comes  unexpectedly  to  light,  and  then 
we  are  inclined  to  doubt  of  the  possibility  of  educating  them  to  civilization, 
and  are  even  disposed  to  doom  them  to  extinction.  The  wild  fury  of  the 
amok  runner,  blind  wholesale  murders,  are  sudden  breaches  in  the  cold  husk. 
Even  though  the  cannibalism  of  individual  tribes  may  form  no  essential  trait  in 
the  general  character,  the  practice  of  such  a  custom,  in  an  otherwise  high  state  of 
civilization,  remains  a  sign  of  a  cruel  disposition.  The  Malay's  power  of  work, 
and  delight  in  work,  has  often  been  unfavourably  judged.  The  brisk  activity  in 
trade  shown  by  certain  Malay  tribes,  especially  the  Bugises,  cannot  blind  us  to  the 
fact  that  a  genuine  impulse  to  energetic  labour  is  not  much  more  native  to  the 
Malay  than  to  the  Negro,  and  that  he  prefers  to  do  only  so  much  as  the  day 
requires.  But  with  the  sweating  system  in  vogue,  a  distaste  for  labour  is  often 
only  a  distaste  for  compulsory  labour  ;  in  the  Philippines  a  slight  increase  in  wages 
exercised  a  great  attraction  for  the  native  labourer,  and  Sarawak,  under  skilful 
management  of  free  native  labour,  produced  great  results  in  the  domain  of 
agriculture. 

The  religious  temperament  is  not  everywhere  alike,  and  here,  too,  religious 
disposition  is  various.  It  may  be  said  that  the  Dyak  has  more  religion  than  the 
Battak  ;  at  least  he  shows  more  outward  manifestation  of  religious  need,  but  his 
religion  is  decidedly  worse  than  that  of  the   Battak,  upon  whom  it  still  exercises 


BODILY  CONFORMATION  AND  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE   OF  MALAYS     399 

some  slight  moral  influences.  Thus  it  is  said  that  the  inhabitants  of  Timorlaut 
do  nothing  without  prayer  or  sacrifice.  The  true  Malays  of  Borneo,  even  when 
they  dwell  near  the  Dyaks,  have  accepted  Islam  more  cordially  than  have  these 
latter,  who,  in  spite  of  their  turbans  and  their  pilgrimages  to  Mecca,  have  remained 
heathens  inwardly.  Even  in  that  Mussulman  fanaticism,  which  has  actually  caused 
fears  for  the  European  sovereignty  in  the  Dutch  and   Spanish  possessions,  the 


A  Calinga  of  Luzon  in  the  Philippines.     (From  a  photograph  in  the  Damann  Album.) 

tribes  vary  much.  The  most  fanatical  are  the  true  Malays  ;  the  hardest  to  convert, 
the  Battaks,  among  whom  Islam  has  made  the  slowest  progress.  In  the  Sulu 
Islands  the  Spaniards  had  to  contend  with  assassins  in  the  shape  of  the  Moras 
juramentados,  who  had  taken  the  oath  to  slay  Christians.  In  Acheen  the 
people  are  fairly  tolerant  towards  those  of  another  faith.  Pilgrimages  to  Mecca 
have  become  very  common  among  the  Malays,  chiefs  give  large  sums  to  defray 
the  pilgrims'  journey,  and  a  Hadji  who  has  visited  Mecca  is  now  almost  sure  to 
be  among  the  domestic  staff  of  a  rich  man. 


40O  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

Intellectual  capacity  shows  itself  mainly  in  the  gift  of  annexing  foreign  culture 
they  are  good  imitators  in  everything  ;  they  have  even  reached  a  certain  dexterity 
in  counterfeit  coining.  The  different  religions  have  made  their  way  rapidly  and 
close  upon  the  heels  of  one  another.  It  is  some  decades  since  English  missionaries 
in  Madagascar  had  to  take  steps  to  prevent  the  diffusion  of  Paine's  Age  of  Reason, 
and  other  works  of  a  free-thinking  nature.  Self-control  is  expressed  in  every- 
day life,  and  the  oriental  talent  for  tranquillity  and  moderation  is  retained,  however 
hotly  passions  may  seethe  in  their  hearts.  Their  address  is  courteous,  in  the 
higher  rank  fastidious.  Eloquence  is  native  to  the  Malay,  the  language  loves 
repetitions  of  varied  forms,  and  thus  preserves  even  an  unintelligent  flow  of  talk 
from  faltering. 

The  calculation  of  time  is  simple  among  the  forest-tribes.  They  reckon  the 
day  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  and  longer  divisions  of  time  according  to  the  recurrence 
of  full  moon,  and  the  dry  and  rainy  seasons.  The  solar  year  is  of  Indian  intro- 
duction. From  the  same  source  came  writing  and  the  elements  of  religion,  as 
well  as  the  designation  of  the  eight  regions  of  the  heaven,  the  signs  of  the  zodiac, 
and  the  month  of  thirty  days. 

The  identity -of  the  Malayo-Polynesian  language  from  Easter  Island  to  Mada- 
gascar, from  Formosa  to  New  Zealand,  is  beyond  question.  Forty  dialects  may  be 
spoken  in  Timor  or  eleven  in  Aru,  but  a  fundamental  agreement  prevails.  All 
belong  to  the  Agglutinative  family.  Root-words  undergo  little  or  no  change,  but 
new  words  are  formed  by  means  of  prefixes,  suffixes,  insertion,  and  reduplication, 
The  radicals  are,  with  few  exceptions,  disyllabic,  and  do  not  show  their  grammatical 
value  in  this  form.  Quite  a  hundred  derivatives  may  exist  for  any  root.  Juxta- 
position of  consonants  is  avoided.  Case,  number,  and  gender  are  not  expressed 
by  inflection.  The  marks  of  Malayo-Polynesian  languages"  are  euphony,  simplicity, 
vagueness.  These  apply  especially  to  Malay  in  the  stricter  sense,  which  for  that 
reason  has  succeeded  in  becoming  the  lingua  franca  of  the  archipelago.  Some  of 
the  differences  may  be  referred  to  admixture  with  foreign  elements.  In  the  Tagal 
dialects  we  find  Chinese  and  perhaps  also  Japanese,  while  Sanskrit  and  Tamil 
elements  make  up  more  than  40  per  cent  of  the  vocabulary  of  the  westerly  islands. 
Including  Arabic,  Chinese,  and  Dutch,  the  percentage  of  foreign  words  in  many 
dialects  must  be  over  fifty.  The  frequent  shiftings  of  population  cause  linguistic 
changes  ;  and  further,  pronunciation  constitutes  a  ground  of  difference. 

The  most  various  views  have  been  expressed  in  regard  to  relations  of  the 
branches  of  the  Malay  family  of  languages  towards  each  other.  The  dialects  of 
Oceania  are  probably  to  be  regarded  as  the  older  forms,  while  those  of  the  west 
Malays  have  become  modified  by  continental  influences  in  a  higher  degree.  The 
most  important  groups  are  the  Tagals  of  the  Philippines,  to  whom  the  Formosans 
and  Sulu  Islanders  are  akin  ;  and  the  Malays  of  Malacca,  to  whom  belong  the 
Acheenese,  the  Rejangs,  and  the  Lampongs  of  Sumatra.  Akin  to  the  Javanese 
are  the  people  of  Bali  and  Madura,  and  to  a  less  extent  those  of  Sunda  in  West 
Java.  The  Macassarese  and  Bugises  of  Celebes  form  a  companion  group.  To 
the  Battaks  of  Sumatra  belong  the  inhabitants  of  the  Nias  and  Batu  groups. 
Borneo  belongs  by  origin  to  the  Dyaks.  Lastly,  the  Alfurs  spread  from  the 
north  of  Celebes  over  the  lesser  archipelagos  to  New  Guinea.  In  respect  of 
language,  the  people  of  the  Nicobars  and  the  Tsiampas  in  the  east  of  Further  India 
are  near  to  the   Malay  family.      The  influences  of  civilization  have  brought  the 


BODILY  CONFORMATION  AND  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE   OF  MALAYS    401 


great  race  together  in  larger  groups,  which  we  can  distinguish  as  West  Malays 
subject  to  Indian  influence,  North  Malays  to  that  of  China  and  Japan,  and  East 
Malays  lying  out  of  the  reach  of  either. 

A  great  many  of  the  races  of  the  Indian  Ocean  have  mastered  the  art  of 
writing,  which  has  reached  them  from  India  ;  as,  for  instance,  the  higher  tribes  of 
Sumatra,  the  Javanese,  the  people  of  Balu,  and  the  Visayas,  the  Bugises,  and  the 
Tagals.  Humboldt  long  ago  called  attention  to  internal  differences  ;  were  these 
acquired  directly  or  indirectly,  and  have  they  undergone  further  development  ? 
In  most  cases  we  may  assume  a 
secondary  outflow,  probably  from 
Java,  whence,  even  in  historical  times, 
powerful  influences  have  reached  to 
Sumatra  also.  Later,  owing  to  the 
spread  of  Islam,  Arabic  became  the 
usual  writing  among  the  genuine 
Malays,  and  most  recently  Dutch 
influence  has  brought  Roman  char- 
acters into  use.  The  material  on 
which  the  letters  are  inscribed  is 
bast,  bamboo-bark,  or  lombar-\e2ives  ; 
also  a  stuff  like  parchment  prepared 
from  bamboo.  The  ruder  tribes  do 
without  writing.  As  a  substitute 
for  it,  knotted  strings  are  used  in 
Ceram,  Formosa,  and  elsewhere. 

As  to  an  independent  Malay 
literature,  so  far  as  it  has  any 
special  character,  it  is  too  insignifi- 
cant and  too  much  in  one  line  to 
call  for  mention  ; ,  being  limited  to 
legends,  anecdotes,  and  books  of 
magic.     Indeed,  until   at   Marsden's 

instigation    the   legal    customs    of    the   T.^^„„g3^  ^j^^  Rejang  characters,  from  Sumatra-four-fiftta 

Rejangs,  Passamahs,  and  others  were  -.    .  .  ,. 

collected  a  hundred  years  ago,  there 


real  size.      ( Munich  Museum. ) 


seems  to  have  been  no  written  Malay  law  ;  though  Arabic  writings  upon  law 
and  other  subjects  had  already  been  translated  into  Malay,  Javanese,  and 
Bugis.  Their  poetry  mingles  Indian  with  Arabic  forms.  The  greater  poems, 
in  the  mythic -historical  and  descriptive  manner  (SJtar),  consist  of  four-lined 
stanzas,  the  lines  as  a  rule  rhyming ;  the  lesser  celebrate  gods  or  men,  contain 
reflections  on  the  nothingness  of  the  world,  the  unkindness  of  fortune,  love,  and 
the  like.  Here  the  oriental  parallelism  of  thought  recurs  in  double  strophes  with 
the  character  of  recitative.  In  their  singing  too  a  recitative,  mostly  nasal  and 
drawling,  predom.inates.  The  imagery  of  their  love-songs  awakes  reminiscences 
of  the  Koran  or  the  Song  of  Solomon.  The  Javanese  affect  a  vowel  rhyme 
in  the  fabulous  ballads,  in  which  they  represent  the  period  500  years  ago  as 
of  remote  mythical  antiquity.  The  Pepos  of  Formosa,  in  songs  composed  m 
the  Malay  tongue,  chant  the  moonshine  and  sunshine,  the  forest  and  liberty,  and 

2  D 


402  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

the  heroic  deeds  of  various  great  chiefs.  While  Indian  pantomimes  are  produced 
at  the  courts  of  Javanese  princes,  the  Spaniards  have  naturalised  their  Moor-dramas 
in  the  Philippines  no  less  than  in  America,  setting  forth  in  endless  variations 
fights  between  Christians  and  Mussulmans,  spiced  w^ith  amatory  episodes.  The 
Wajang  actor  illustrates  the  old  heroic  legends  in  puppets-shows  with  flat  leather 
marionettes  of  grotesque  form  and  colour  ;  using  artificial  stimulants  to  enable 
him  to  recite  and  act  all  night  long.  Every  Javanese  court  possesses  a  player  of 
this  sort.  In  the  tales,  beasts  play  a  great  part.  In  the  beast-fables,  which 
Riedel  has  collected  from  the  Minahassas  and  others,  there  are  mythological  traces 
reminding  us  of  similar  tales  in  South  Africa  and  America  ;  the  place  of  the  jackal 
or  coyote  being  here  taken  by  the  monkey.  A  great  many  others  in  the  western 
islands  deal  with  elephants. 

All  this  has,  no  doubt,  among  the  more  advanced  tribes,  been  preserved  in  a 
pretty  much  unaltered  form  by  means  of  writing,  but  it  is,  for  the  most  part,  a 
treasure  of  which  no  one  now  knows  the  right  use.  The  sole  importance  of 
writing  is  that  it  prevents  the  monuments  of  past  times  from  perishing  utterly ; 
and  it  has  certainly  contributed  to  keep  a  race  like  the  Battaks  at  a  certain 
elevation,  after  their  closer  connection  with  their  native  civilization  had  been 
loosened. 

Mother-wit  is  attested  by  various  proverbs.  "  Escaping  the  jaws  of  the 
alligator  to  fall  into  the  fangs  of  the  tiger  "  ;  "  When  the  junk  founders,  the  shark 
gets  his  dinner  "  ;  "  The  net  calls  the  basket  a  coarse  bit  of  work  "  ;  "  What  use  is 
it  for  the  peacock  to  swagger  in  the  jungle  ?  "  ;  "  Can  the  ground  turn  itself  into 
iron  ?  "  A  coward  is  called  "  a  duck  in  spurs  "  ;  a  tricky  person  "  sits  like  a  cat 
and  springs  like  a  tiger  "  ;  of  a  chatterer,  "  The  turtle  lays  a  thousand  eggs  and  no 
one  knows  ;  the  hen  lays  one  and  tells  all  the  world."  A  bit  of  fatalism  is,  "  Even 
the  fish  who  lives  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  comes  to  the  net  at  last." 

Nothing  speaks  so  plainly  as  their  sculpture,  of  a  descent  from  a  higher  level. 
We  can  see  what  Malay  races  under  Indian  influence  achieved  600  or.  700  years 
ago.  Not  only  do  we  find  mighty  ruins,  and  finished  statues  in  stone  or  bronze ; 
but  highly  conventionalised  forms  appear  even  in  the  simple  ornament  with  which 
the  Alfurs  beautify  their  wooden  sepulchral  monuments  and  stone  coffins,  richer 
and  more  regular  than  any  that  the  art  of  "  natural  "  races  produces  ;  and  this 
influence  appears  in  operation  as  far  away  as  New  Guinea.  Among  the  Dyaks 
we  find  a  specially  rich  development  of  art  in  their  wooden  shields,  the  sheaths 
of  daggers,  krisses,  and  spears,  carvings  of  every  kind,  and  iron  blades.  It  is 
interesting  for  its  suggestions  of  China ;  thus  the  Dyak  dragon-ornament  seems 
to  be  of  Chinese  origin. 

The  modern  temples  of  the  Brahmanic  Siva-worship  are  not  comparable  to 
the  monuments  of  a  great  age.  Their  premises  are  extensive  indeed,  but  modest. 
The  famous  settlement  of  the  gods  at  Vator  on  Bali,  the  object  of  numerous 
pilgrimages,  consists  of  many  open  spaces,  separated  by  hedges  and  enclosed 
within  a  high  wall.  In  these  stand  square  pillars  with  niches,  and  oven-like 
shrines  with  a  small  hollow  space  above.  Besides  this  there  are  stalls  lightly 
built  of  bamboo,  where  the  pious  eat  and  sleep  during  the  festival,  which  lasts  for 
days.  In  the  older  buildings  the  most  ornamental  thing  is  the  porch,  with  two 
octagonal  side-pillars  of  vast  thickness,  set  round  with  statues,  and  having  stepped 
cornices,  with  reliefs  in  niches  and  other  ornament.     The  most  magnificent  orna- 


BODILY  CONFORMATION  AND  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE   OF  MALAYS    403 


ment  of  those  periods  is  the  temple,  with  its 
precincts  at  Burubudor,  near  Jokjokarta  in  Java. 
This  dates  from  the  eighth  century,  and  forms 
an  enormous  group  of  five  ledges  -running  in 
broken  lines,  with  555  n-iches  for  life-size  images 
of  Buddha,  and  narrow  galleries  with  carvings 
of  the  most  artistic  kind.  The  bas-reliefs,  if 
placed  in  a  row,  would  extend  to  a  length  of 
over  three  miles.  Like  the  Indian  topes,  this 
o-icrantic  monument  was  intended  to  receive  a 
sacred  memorial  of  Buddha  in  a  reliquary  ;  and 
the  five  rows  of  steps  were  for  the  procession 
to  mount  up  and  go  round  by.  The  palace- 
buildings,  again,  however  spacious  they  may 
be,  have  at  the  present  day  Httle  that  is 
monumental  about  them.  They  remind  one  of 
the  palaces  of  negro  chiefs  ;  instead  of  one  hut, 
such  as  the  subject  inhabits,  we  have  a  hun- 
dred. If  any  architectural  flights  occur,  it  is 
where,  during  the  last  century,  not  Indian  but 
Chinese  themes,  and  latterly  misunderstood 
ideas  from  Europe,  have  made  their  way  in. 
A  palace  of  this  kind  is  an  entire  city,  enclosed 
in  walls  like  a  fortress,  surrounded  with  bar- 
racks, traversed  by  courtyards  and  garden.  It 
contains  a  population  of  officials,  attendants, 
and  hangers-on,  and  consists  of  courts  sur- 
rounded by  galleries  and  detached  dwellings, 
decorated  with  plants  and  flowers  in  Chinese 
and  Japanese  pots,  aviaries,  wretched  kiosks, 
and  deformed  trees. 

The  musical  instruments  of  the  primitive 
Malay  tribes  do  not  reach  a  higher  level  than 
those  of  Melanesia.  The  Ilongotes  play  upon 
a  piece  of  bamboo,  in  which  they  make  strings 
by  incisions  in  the  outer  bark,  and  they  also 
make  flutes  of  bamboo.  Among  the  mountain 
tribes  of  southern  Luzon  we  find  an  instrument 
recalling  the  gora  of  the  Hottentots,  a  dried 
stalk  of  a  scitamineous  plant  bent  into  a 
curve  by  using  a  tendril  as  a  string,  and  a  half 
coco-nut  shell  attached  thereto  to  give  reson- 
ance ;  with  the  additioij  of  a  stick  we  have  the 
lyre  and  plectrum  in  its  most  primitive  form. 
The  nose  flute  and  Pan-pipes,  as  well  as  a 
guitar  of  poor  tone  with  two  strings  of  rattan, 
are  found  in  Borneo,  Celebes,  and  Java. 
Among  the   Dyaks  the  Pan-pipe  is  provided 


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Magic  staves  of  the 
Battaks,        used 
especially  for  weather-magic,  and  also 
in  war— J  real  size.    (Leip.  and  Dresd. 


borne 
Mus. ) 


404  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

with  a  gourd  for  resonance,  and  the  single  pipes  with  holes  like  flutes.  The 
Battaks  have  a  violin  and  a  guitar,  each  with  two  strings  ;  the  alarm  drum  is 
called  tabu  ;  tom-toms  and  gongs  have  become  common  through  Indian  or  Chinese 
influence.  The  highest  development  of  music  in  the  Indian  style  is  found  at  the 
courts  of  the  rich  chiefs.  The  gamelan  or  gamalang,  the  orchestra  of  a  prince 
in  Surakarta,  consists  of  copper  bowls  of  all  shapes  and  sizes  ;  rows  of  copper 
discs  from  2  inches  to  i  yard  long  on  bronze  stands  ;  planks  of  resonant  wood, 
resembling  in  their  arrangement  the  African  marimba ;  gongs,  large  and  small, 
4  inches  to  6  feet  in  diameter ;  and  lastly,  two-stringed  fiddles.  Big  drums  also 
belong  to  the  gamelan.  The  orchestra  starts  at  a  given  signal,  a  hurly-burly  of 
strange  tones — loud,  soft,  silvery,  wailing — ensues,  amid  which  is  heard  the 
bellow  of  the  gongs.  It  is  seldom  that  any  melody  emerges.  From  time  to 
time  the  screaming  voices  of  the  women  accompany  the  doleful  music.  In 
Borneo  and  Celebes  we  find  in  the  place  of  this  Javanese  orchestra  only  the 
gong  and  a  kind  of  wooden  harmonica  ;  in  the  Philippines  Chinese  music  is 
cultivated. 

Dancing  among  the  genuine  Malays  is  participated  in  by  the  men  only,  but 
in  Java  and  in  the  east  by  both  sexes.  At  court  festivals  in  Kutei,  Dyaks  appear 
in  weapon  dances,  as  well  as  the  sultan's  premiere  danseuse  from  Java.  Dance  and 
pantomime  merge  into  each  other  ;  the  dancers  are  also  comedians,  and  the  dance 
is  almost  always  accompanied  with  singing.  In  general  the  dances  are  much  too 
slow  for  our  taste,  and  this  is  true  even  of  the  weapon  dances  with  spear  or  kriss. 
Deportment  rather  than  grace  is  their  prevailing  feature  ;  the  taste  for  mimic 
dances,  in  which  individual  muscles  rather  than  the  whole  body  play  a  part,  is 
here  carried  to  an  extreme,  it  is  the  refinement  of  oriental  over-civilization.  The 
people,  however,  both  here  and  in  Formosa,  are  still  acquainted  with  wild  round 
dances  ;  the  Malays  like  festivity  and  play,  but  unbridled  merriment  is  not  in 
their  nature.  Indolence  and  indifference  are  the  faults  specially  reprehended  in 
the  church  festivals  of  the  Philippine  Malays  ;  still  there  are  distinctions  even  in 
this,  the  true  Malays  are  more  serious  than  the  less  restrained  Dyaks  ;  and,  in 
general,  life  is  cheery  and  bright  in  the  east,  in  the  west  more  taciturn  and  suspicious. 
At  the  popular  feasts  on  the  conclusion  of  the  fast,  and  at  their  accession,  the 
princes  receive  and  feast  everybody.  At  another  feast  both  sexes  live  in  the  open 
country  in  tents  and  huts,  they  pay  visits,  sing  to  the  tambourine  and  the  violin,, 
while  dance,  pantomime,  and  song  last  whole  days  and  nights.  The  toku,  which  is 
danced  at  funeral  rites  in  Halmahera,  consists  of  circling  round  and  forming  chains 
from  evening  till  late  in  the  morning.  The  funeral  dance  of  the  Alfurs  is  danced 
in  a  closed  circle,  which  revolves  continuously  from  right  to  left  with  shouts,  while 
the  orchestra,  composed  of  old  women,  sits  outside.  In  Celebes  the  weapon  dance 
with  shield  and  sword,  such  as  is  usual  throughout  the  archipelago,  displays  no 
sign  of  melancholy  or  listlessness  ;  the  whole  body  is  in  movement ;  leaps,  bendings, 
and  twistings  in  every  direction  are  executed  ;  and  the  face  exhibits  the  wildest 
grimaces.  Where  head -hunting  is  customary,  the  very  boys  have  a  dance  in 
imitation  of  the  practice  in  which  a  coco-nut  represents  the  highly-valued  object 
of  pursuit.  If  a  skull  has  been  captured,  betel  and  tobacco  are  offered  to  it 
during  the  dance  as  an  act  of  conciliation. 

Gambling  is  a  prominent  trait  in  the  Malay  character,  legislation  has  even 
been    found    necessary  to    check    its   excesses,  and    by   the    common    law  of  the 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER  PROPERTY  OF  THE  MALAYS         405 

Redjangs,  all  games,  except  cock-fighting,  are  forbidden  under  heavy  penalties. 
But  cock-fighting  is  something  more  than  an  ordinary  game,  the  prince  and  all 
his  great  men  frequently  assist  at  it.  At  the  court  of  the  Sultan  of  Kutei  mains 
are  fought  every  day ;  sixty  fine  cocks  are  every  day  washed  and  carefully  fed. 
In  the  evening  people  assemble  to  play  something  resembling  heads  and  tails,  or 
some  game  with  Chinese  cards,  always  for  a  stake — prince  playing  with  commons, 
children  with  old  people.  The  cock-fights  often  take  days  to  decide,  even  more  time, 
trouble,  and  money  is  required  in  the  settlement  of  controversies  and  bets  accord- 
ing to  elaborate  rules,  the  place  is  at  once  a  gambling-hell  and  a  stock  exchange. 
No  event  seems  too  great  or  too  small  to  afford  an  excuse  for  the  sport.  The 
cocks  are  fitted  with  steel  spurs,  which  are  rubbed  with  lemon-juice  to  make  the 
wounds  more  painful.  In  the  Battak  country  special  huts  are  set  apart  for  the 
sport,  standing  by  some  frequented  road  midway  between  two  kampongs  or  villages. 
We  find  also  among  the  Malays  a  great  variety  of  board-games,  including  chess. 
The  top  is  widely  diffused.  Games  of  football  are  customary  among  the  Tobak- 
Battaks. 

Beast-fights,  imitated  from  India,  take  place  at  the  courts  of  the  princes. 
Even  tigers  and  rhinoceroses  are  brought  into  the  arena,  especially  in  Java  ;  while 
in  Madura  they  have  bull-races.  At  the  tiger-baits,  or  Rampok,  men  armed  with 
strong  spears,  four  deep,  form  a  square  150  to  200  yards  in  the  side.  The  two 
front  rows  kneel,  the  others  stand  upright.  In  the  middle  is  a  bamboo  cage 
covered  with  straw,  and  having  its  door  fastened  only  by  a  thin  cord,  in  which 
is  the  tiger.  At  a  given  signal  the  gamelan  strikes  up  a  slow  martial  melody, 
and  two  men  set  fire  to  the  straw.  The  sparks  excite  the  tiger  to  fury  ;  he  leaps 
up,  and  shakes  at  his  prison  until  the  flames  reach  the  cord  and  the  door  bursts 
open,  allowing  him  to  bound  out  and  fly  at  the  two  men,  who  are  retreating  in 
time  to  the  music.  They  take  refuge  behind  the  row  of  spears,  which  closes  up 
after  them- ;  and  when  the  tiger  attempts  by  a  mighty  spring  to  break  through  the 
living  wall,  a  score  of  spears  pierce  his  breast. 


§  18.  DRESS,  WEAPONS,  AND  OTHER  PROPERTY  OF 

THE  MALAYS 

Dress— Stages  from  Ilongotes,  Utos,  and  their  allies  to  Javanese  and  Formosans — Indian  and  Chinese  influences 
—Weapons :  kampilan  and  kriss,  bow,  blow-gun,  arrows,  poisoned  arrows,  spears,  shields,  and  general 
equipment — Architecture  :  pile  buildings,  free  dwellings — Household  implements — Agriculture  :  paddy 
fields,  harvest  festival — Cattle-breeding — Hunting  and  fishing — Food,  tobacco,  betel,  opium — Industrial 
conditions  :  iron  industry,  pottery,  weaving  and  dyeing — Trade — Bugises  and  Malays — Money. 

Malay  costume  fluctuates  between  nudity  and  superfluity,  since  sundry  Arabic 
and  Chinese  influences  have  overspread  the  simplicity  of  the  natural  race.  Where 
the  population  has  come  least  into  contact  with  these,  or  has  been  kept  back  by 
indolence,  we  find  the  simplest  conditions.  But  we  also  see  how  these  are  always 
retreating,  so  that  even  the  backward  mountain  tribes  of  the  Philippines,  whose 
loin-cloth  is  scarcely  sufficient  for  decency,  have  partially  begun  to  wear  clothes. 
It  is  reported  of  the  head-hunters  of  Luzon,  the  Ilongotes  of  the  Principe  province, 
who  are  real  savages,  that   all  their  clothing  is  a   band    of  beaten    bark,  while 


4o6 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


immature  boys  and  girls  go  stark  naked  ;  yet  when  one  of  them  has  occasion  to 
go  into  one  of  the  neighbouring  Christian  villages,  he  puts  on  a  shirt  and  trousers. 
The  Formosans  again  vary  between  a  scanty  band  and  abundant  clothing,  accordino- 
to  the  season  of  the  year  and  the  nature  of  their  work.  The  Lubus  of  Sumatra, 
who  but  ten  years  ago  wore  only  a  narrow  girdle  of  bark,  are  now  dressed  after 
the  style  of  the  Battaks  ;  but  bark  and  skins  still  play  an  important  part  over  large 

districts  of  Borneo.  The  Cera- 
mese  wear  plain  belts  and  thigh- 
cloths  of  bark  ;  the  women,  by 
way  of  further  clothing,  have  a 
piece  of  bamboo  hanging  from 
the  girdle ;  the  children,  who 
run  about  otherwise  naked,  wear 
just  the  minimum  of  covering. 

Among  the  wandering  Utos 
of  South  Borneo — the  dreaded 
bearers  of  the  blow -gun,  men 
and  women  have  chavats,  wow&n 
of  bast,  while  a  deer  or  panther 
skin  cover  the  upper  part  of  the 
body  ;  a  head-dress  of  fur,  with 
the  tail  feathers  of  the  hornbill 
stuck  upright  in  it,  forms  part 
of  a  costume  befitting  hunters. 
The  Dyak  women  wear  round 
their  breast  and  neck  a  tissue 
adorned  with  beads  arid  teeth 
which  hang  down  the  back ; 
the  Maanjans  of  south-east 
Borneo  have  a  sleeveless  jacket 
of  bark  cloth  in  addition  to  their 
kilt,  while  the  women  wind' 
about  their  hips  the  tapis,  a 
smaller  edition  of  the  sarong 
made  out  of  home-woven  tissue. 
Men  of  the  wealthier  class  have 
jackets  with  sleeves,  and  their 
women  breast-handkerchiefs.  With  the  invasion  of  the  Bugis  element  into  Borneo, 
short  trousers  have  been  adopted  by  many  of  the  natives,  all  the  more  readily 
from  the  fact  that  these  active  inhabitants  of  Celebes  have  for  a  long  while  carried 
on  a  trade  in  the  requisite  materials. 

In  the  more  westerly  parts,  clothing  is  very  different.  In  former  times,  Indian 
and  Chinese  stuffs  came  hither  in  great  quantities,  now  sarongs  are  brought  from 
Europe  by  the  hundred  thousand.  In  the  country  itself  there  is  a  flourishing  and 
highly  developed  industry  in  weaving  and  dyeing ;  in  Malacca,  Sumatra,  and 
Java,  and  in  the  smaller  islands,  the  Malayan  Bugis  colonies,  on  the  coast  of  Borneo, 
and  other  islands,  clothing  consists  of  the  sack-shaped  sarong,  which  is  worn  in 
many  tasteful  forms.     Among  the  more  advanced,  short  wide  trousers  and  a  jacket 


A  Calinga  woman  of  Luzon.      ( From  a  photograph  in 
the  Damann  Album). 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER  PROPERTY  OF   THE  MALAYS         407 


are  added  to  this  ;  other  usual  articles  of  clothing  are  a  head-kerchief,  a  narrow 
cloth  called  slendong,  in  which  babies  are  carried  ;  sandals,  a  scarf  or  binder  round 
the  body,  and  a  hat  of  leaves  or  rattan.  Among  the  Tobah  Battaks,  whoever 
can  afford  it  wears  a  smarter  coat  as  fighting  dress.  The  quality  of  the  material 
distinguishes  the  rich  from  the  poor,  and,  as  in  China,  yellow  distinguishes  the  man 
of  rank  from  the  plebeian.  Cotton  is,  however,  preferred  for  the  sarong,  since  it  is 
not  lawful  to  pray  in  silk.  Finer  materials  are  reserved  for  the  families  of  princes  ; 
women  often  wear  only  the  sarong.  A  jacket  fashioned  in  front  with  a  button  or 
brooch  and  trimmed  with  gold  is  often  worn,  while  valuable  hairpins  and  bands, 
earrings,  and  also  handsome  finger  rings,  form  their  ornaments. 

Differences  of  dress  extend  also  to  the  colours,  which  in  many  regions  are 
striking  in  their  variety, 
while  elsewhere,  as  among 
the  Malays  of  Sumatra, 
black  is  usual.  Often  there 
are  very  sharp  distinctions 
in  ornament,  such  as  a  tuft 
of  feathers,  flowers  in  the 
hair,  and  so  on.  In  the 
nOrth-east,  Arabic  influence 
makes  itself  felt ;  the  dress 
of  the  Sulu  islanders,  which, 
like  that  of  Mindanao,  con- 
sists of  turban,  jacket,  wide 
trousers,  and  a  cloak  like 
a  burnoos,  was  at  one  time 
held  to  corroborate  the  idea 
of  their  Arabian  descent. 
The  Bugises  of  Celebes 
have  imported  their  short 
cloth  trousers  into  Sumbawa, 
Flores,  and  other  places, 
while       their      trade      has 

given  a  specially  wide  diffusion  to  the  chequered  sarongs  of  Macassar.  In  the 
most  northerly  parts,  inhabited  by  Malays,  namely  in  Formosa,  we  find  Chinese 
affinities  clearly  expressed  in  trousers,  shoes,  and  embroidered  blouses.  Here 
the  black  head -kerchief,  as  well  as  the  turban,  is  favoured  by  both  sexes. 
Among  all  the  modern  clothing,  relics  of  the  primitive  dress  often  continue 
to  lead  a  stunted  existence.  The  bark  girdle,  which  the  Alfurs  of  Ceram 
put  on  with  ceremonies  in  their  fifteenth  year,  as  a  sign  of  maturity,  has  now 
turned  into  a  meaningless  thread  worn  under  the  cotton  jacket  and  the  sarong. 
In  the  same  way,  the  women  of  the  Andamans  wear  under  their  Christian  clothing 
their  old  fig  leaf  in  the  shape  of  a  bunch  of  leaves,  while  the  children  of  well-to-do 
Malays  have  a  gold  or  silver  plate  fastened  by  a  chain  round  their  bodies. 

The  modes  of  dressing  the  hair  are  manifold.  Usually  all  hair  except  that  of 
the  head  is  removed  ;  the  Tagals  in  Luzon  keep  the  hair  cf  the  head  short ;  the 
Zambals  leave  one  long  lock  ;  the  Shekwans  of  Formosa,  following  the  Chinese 
customs,  shave  the  front  of  the  head  and  draw  the  hair  into  a  pig-tail.     ^  " 


Toangos  of  Northern  Sumatra.     (From  a  photograph. ) 


On  the 


4o8 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


other  hand,  the  women  dress  their  hair  in  a  fashion  which  recurs  in  the  Phih'ppines, 
in  Celebes,  and  in  Borneo.  Part  of  the  hair  is  combed  down  over  the  forehead, 
and  cut  in  a  fringe  over  the  eyebrows,  the  rest  is  tied  in  a  tight  knot  at  the  top  of 
the  head.  On  their  heads  they  wear  a  square  black  handkerchief,  the  two  corners 
of  which  are  lightly  fastened  together  at  the  back  of  the  neck,  forming  a  sort  of 
cap  which  throws  a  deep  shade  on  the  face. 


The  iangoi,  or  South-East  Bornean  head-dress — one-third  and  one- seventeenth 
real  size.     {Frankfort  City  Museum. ) 

In  West  Java  the  usual  head-dress  is  a  muffin  cap  of  white,  blue,  or  black 
satin,  in  Samarang  a  handkerchief  fastened  on  the  head,  with  two  corners 
sticking  out  like  wings.  The  people  of  Acheen,  and  some  mountain  tribes  of  Luzon, 
wear  a  little  cap  of  the  peculiar  shape  shown  on  page  399 ;  the  Battaks,  a  cloth  worn 
like  a  turban.  Among  the  Sumatrans  of  the  interior,  the  chiefs  place  on  their 
shaven  heads  little  caps  plaited  of  rushes  and  embroidered  with  gold.  The 
women  of  the  Bornean  tribes  wear  large  straw  hats  with  brims  a  yard  wide.  The 
Tagal  caps  are  perfect  segments  of  spheres.  Straw  caps,  like  those  worn  by 
miners  in  Germany,  are  found  in  Borneo  and  Luzon  ;  pointed  hats  with  tufts  of 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,   AND  OTHER   PROPERTY  OF  THE  MALAYS        409 


black  palm  fibre  in  Sulu.  The  women  of  Java  gather  their  hair  into  a  knot ;  the 
Tagal  women  wind  their  long  sleek  black  hair  in  two  loose  strands  round  their 
heads,  and  fasten  it  usually  with  a  ribbon  worn  like  a  turban.  In  the  Philippines, 
the  Sulu  Islands,  and  among  many  Mussulman  tribes,  the  turban  is  in  general 
use.  In  Sumatra,  the  mode  of  dressing  the  hair  varies  from  one  province  to 
another ;  sometimes  it  falls  to  the  shoulders,  sometimes  it  is  cut  short.  In  the 
twelve  Kotas  the  ladies  roll  their  hair  into  a  coil  and  wrap  it  round  with  a  piece  of 
cloth,  while  in  the  contiguous  provinces  they  plait  it  into  a  pig-tail  on  one  side  of 
the  head.  The  Alfurs  of  Ceram  also  tie  their  hair  to  the  left ;  but  for  men,  the 
most  usual  fashion  is  to  wear  the  hair  in  a  tight  knot,  under  a  head  cloth,  into 


Hats  worn  by  chiefs  of  Kutei  tribes  in  Borneo.     (Munich  Museum. ) 

which  the  Dyaks  on  festivals  and  market  days  fasten  silver  rings.  High  combs 
of  wood  are  worn  in  Ceram  ;  of  tortoise-shell  in  Sumatra ;  but  the  modes  oi 
dressing  the  hair  for  festivals  in  perfect  helmets  of  many  coloured  feathers,  flowers, 
and  leaves,  are  picturesque  beyond  description.  In  pugilistic  contests,  the 
champion  wears  on  his  head  a  carved  ring  of  wood,  in  which  a  bunch  of  leathers 
is  stuck.  In  the  Moluccas  the  skins  of  birds  of  Paradise  adorn  the  hair  ot  the 
girls,  while  false  pig-tails  for  women  are  offered  for  sale  in  the  Battak  markets. 

The  distribution  of  tattooing  is  irregular.  Among  the  Formosans,  the  men 
wear  horizontal  stripes  across  the  whole  forehead  ;  the  women  from  ear  to  ear,  and 
perpendicular  stripes  as  well.  Tattooing  of  the  hands  is  said  to  occur  in  the 
interior  of  Formosa.  In  Luzon,  almost  every  Igorrote  has  a  figure  of  the  sun  on 
the  back  of  his  hand.  Punctured  tattooing  with  Japanese  or  Chinese  patterns  is 
found  among  the  Catalangans.  Among  the  Negritos  as  well  as  among  the 
Igorrotes,  "  scar-tattooing  "  occurs.     The  skin  is  raised  in  folds  over  the  whole  body, 


4IO 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


and  rectilineal  designs  worked  with  a  pointed  iron  style,  or  a  splinter  of  bamboQ, 
In  Ceram,  tattooing  is  only  found  in  the  west,  and  almost  exclusively  in  women, 


Igorrote  tattooing  :  a,  i,  designs  on  the  calves  of  the  legs  ;  c,  d,  on  the  stomach  ;  e  front  view  ; 
/,  back  view  of  a  Burik  ;  g,  a  woman's  arm.      (From  drawings  by  Dr.  Hans  Meyer. ) 

on  the  breast,  upper  arm,  navel,  and  forehead ;  in  Timorlaut  it  is  universal. 
The  tattooing  of  the  Mentawei  Islanders  is  executed  in  simple  but  elegant 
geometrical    lines.       In    Borneo,   again,   extensive    tattooing   has    been  observed 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER   PROPERTY  OF  THE  MALAYS        411 


almost  solely  among  women,  on  the  hands,  feet,  and  the  upper  part  of  the  thigh. 
Men  often  have  merely  a  mark  which  possibly  has  a  religious  or  social  significa- 
tion ■  on  the  forehead,  one  arm,  or  one  leg.     Thus  all  the  Tanjan  Dyaks  are 


Igorrote  necklaces,  with  (a)  tweezers  for  pulling  out  hair  ;  [b)  pendants  of  crocodile  teeth- 
one-third  real  size.      (From  Dr.  Meyer's  collection. ) 

marked  with  • — r— '.  Among  some  Bornean  tribes  extensive  tattooing  occurs,  but 
only  among  valiant  warriors  or  head-hunters.  Those  who  have  come  in  contact  with 
civilization,  like  the  Milanos, 
have  given  it  up  altogether. 
In  Kutei  the  more  difficult 
patterns  are  executed  by  pro- 
fessionals. The  outline  is  first 
cut  in  wood,  and  then  the  design 
is  transferred  to  the  body  with 
a  sharpened  piece  of  bamboo, 
or  a  needle  dipped  in  a  vege- 
table pigment.  The  operation 
is  very  painful  and  lasts  a  long 
time,  but  the  marks  are  indelible 
Tattooing  takes  place  in  the 
male  sex,  as  a  rule,  at  their 
entry  upon  manhood,  among 
girls  as  soon  as  they  are  of  an 
age  to  marry. 

For  dancing  the  face  1= 
painted  ;  the  thumb-nail  of  the 
left  hand  is,  according  to  the 
custom  in  the  east,  allowed  to 
grow  an  inch  long,  and  the 
Bugis  women  even  have  a 
cover  for  it.      Over  the  whole 

Malayan  region  special  attention  is  paid  to  teeth  mutilation,  which  often  appears 
in  connection  with  artificial  colouring  of  the  teeth.  Most  common  of  all  is 
the  filing  of  the  upper  incisors  and  canines  so  that  they  are  made  shorter 
but   keep    their    shape.      The    same    treatment    is    also    applied    to    the    corre- 


Ring  worn  by  the  Igorrotes  on  the  upper  arm  when  dancing- 
one-third  real  size.     (From  the  same. ) 


412 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


spending  teeth  of  the  lower  jaw.  Sometimes  the  teeth  are  filed  to  a  point, 
sometimes  a  transverse  groove  is  cut,  or  a  triangle  is  knocked  out  between 
the   two   front   teeth.      This   is,  as   a  rule,   first   done   at   the   age   of  puberty. 


Malay  weapons  :  (1,2)  Hat  and  shield  from  Mindanao,  in  the  Philippines  ;  (3)  Quiver  with  poisoned  arrows  from 
Celebes ;  (4)  a  champion's  shield  from  Solor  ;  (5)  Sword  from  Gorontalo  in  Celebes ;  (6)  Mandau  of  the 
Kahayan  River  Dyaks  ;  (7)  Outfit  from  Ombai ;  (8)  Spears  from  Java.     (Dresden  Collection.) 

though  we  find  grown  men  who  have  not  yet  undergone  it.  But  in  any  case 
good  manners  seem  to  require  that  it  should  take  place  before  marriage.  What- 
ever may  be  the  original  idea  of  teeth  filing,  it  is  now  done  as  a  gratification  of 
the  sense  of  beauty.  Long  white  teeth  are  dog's  teeth.  Further  evidence  of  this 
is  the  custom,  widespread  in  Borneo  and  Sumatra,  of  drawing  gold  wire  through 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER   PROPERTY  OF   THE  MALAYS        413 


the  four  incisor  teeth  of  the  upper  jaw.  Among  the  Tobah  Battaks  a  man  often 
carries  all  his  property  about  in  his  head  ;  in  this  case  the  teeth  are  always 
blackened,  but,  as  a  rule,  they  are  also  blackened  after  the  first  filing.  This 
practice,  which  now  is  a  mere  matter  of  ornament,  may  have  arisen  from  the  wish 
to  prevent  the  decay  of  the  filed  teeth,  either  by  applying  the  gum  of  a  kind  of 
chalcas  or  artocarpus,  as  in  Borneo,  or  by  staining  with  a  ferruginous  ink,  as  in 
Java ;  but,  besides  this,  betel-chewing  causes  the  teeth  to  have  a  dirty  appearance. 
The  tooth-filing  is  performed  by  experts  ;  formerly  a  stone  was  used,  now  a  chisel 
or  file.  Mussulmans  have  a  legend  to  account  for  it,  that  Mohammed,  on  the 
occasion  of  his  flight  from  the  sheikh  of  Lakad  had  four  of  his  upper  teeth  knocked 
out.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Formosans  assert  that  it  is  done  to  make  the 
breathing  easier.  In  Sumatra,  the  files,  after  the  operation,  are  stuck  into  the  stem 
of  a  banana  in  order  to  preserve  the  patient  from  injurious  consequences.  Circum- 
cision, sometimes  in  the  form  of  slitting,  was  originally  more  widespread,  but  is 
now  confined  to  the  east,  as  Ceram  and  Flores,  where  it  is  celebrated  with  great 


Bow  and  arrows  of  the  Negritos  in  Luzon— one-twelfth  real  size.      (Dr.  Meyer's  Collection. ) 

pomp  as  a  village,  festivity.  Deformation  of  the  skull,  usually  by  flattening  the 
occiputs,  more  rarely  by  oblique  pressure  of  the  forehead,  occurs  in  the  most 
various  Malay  districts. 

Apart  from  the  ornament,  which  is  an  imitation  of  Indian  and  European 
fashions,  the  wearing  of  arm-rings  in  large  numbers,  or  formed  by  spiral  twists, 
reminds  us  of  African  customs.  Among  the  simple  Ilongotes  men  and  women 
wear  rings  of  bronze  or  brass  wire  round  their  necks  and  arms,  and  these  they  set 
with  hard  brightly-coloured  seed,  such  as  those  of  the  Abrus precatorius.  The  wire 
fits  close  to  the  muscular  part  of  the  arm,  and  no  doubt  is  intended  more  for 
increasing  the  muscular  strength  than  for  ornament.  The  ring  worn  by  the 
Igorrotes  on  the  upper  arm  curiously  resembles  that  similarly  worn  by  the  Negroes. 
Tight-lacing  of  the  body  is  found  in  Formosa,  where  you  may  see  boys  runnmg  about 
like  wasps,  while  the  bamboo  or  rattan  belts  of  the  Dyak  women,  worn  one  above 
another,  remind  us  of  the  laced  belts  of  South  America.  In  caves  on  Luzon  arm- 
rings  of  dugong  vertebra;  are  found,  just  such  as  are  prized  by  the  Micronesians. 
In  Central  Sumatra,  too,  the  ornament  of  betrothed  girls  consists,  besides  ear-rings, 
of  narrow  silver  bangles  worn  on  the  wrist  and  fore-arm,  often  twenty  and  more  in 
number,  and  reaching  to  the  elbows.  Unbetrothed  girls  may  only  wear  them  on 
one  arm,  married  women  not  at  all.  The  lads  of  Formosa  are  proud  to  wear 
arm-rings  made  from  the  pig-tails  which  once  grew  upon  the  captured  heads  01 
Chinese.     The  Dyaks  regard  it  as  the  greatest  adornment  to  have  large  holes  in 


414 


THE  HISTORY   OF  MANKIND 


their  ears  in  which  they  wear  wooden  disks  or  heavy  silver  rings.  So  too  the 
Battaks  of  Tobah  and  the  Igorrotes  of  Luzon,  who  especially  affect  crocodile  teeth. 
The  upper  part  of  the  Dyak  ear  is  gay  with  tassels  of  red  cotton  and  the  like,  and 
as  soon  as  a  Dyak  has  become  a  distinguished  head-hunter  he  is  entitled  to  stick 
in  a  pair  of  leopard's  fangs,  while  in  Luzon  the  number  of  ear-plugs  shows  the 
number  of  decapitations  performed  by  the  wearer.     When  a  Nias  man  has  taken 

a  head,  he  gets  a  wire  neck -ring 


strung 


Bow  from  Sulu  of  Asiatic  origin,  and  Negrito  harpoon- 
one-twelfth  real  size.     (Dresden  Collection. ) 


with  many  rings  carved 
from  the  nut  Lodoicea  sechellarum. 
The  Formosans,  who  have  been 
touched  by  Chinese  ways,  make 
but  a  moderate  use  of  armed  ear- 
rings, or  of  glass  beads,  but  the 
unsophisticated    inhabitants    wear 

heavy  ear   pendants   of    bamboo,   stone,   or    metal,   frontlets    of  shells,   and   thin 

copper  arm -rings.       The   Ceramese  are   often   distinguished   by  a   superfluity  of 

bead   pendants,  so    that   the   impression    of   nudity  entirely  disappears,  and  the 

Tinguians  of  Luzon  wear  heavy  masses  of  beads   or   stones    of  many  colours 

which  are  brought  from  the  Batanes  Islands.     Compared  with  these  the  necklaces 

usual  in   Flores,  made  from  the  bright  violet 

flowers    of    Calotropis  gigantea,    produce    a 

splendid  effect.      The  ornaments  of  progeni- 
tors, as  well   as   their  weapons,  hold   a  high 

rank     as     valuable     and    legendary     family 

possessions  of    mystic    importance,   and    be- 
come in  process  of  time  amulets. 

The    Malay    race    delights    in    weapons 

and  finery.      Among  the  poorer  tribes,  who 

are  predominantly  nomad,  the  weapons   arc 

of    a    simpler     kind     and     almost     entirely 

missile   in   character— bow  or  blow-gun  with 

arrows.      Especially  is  this  the  case  with  the 

remote  tribes  in  the   interior  of  Borneo   and 

Luzon,   whom   the  practice  of  head-hunting 

keeps   in   a  constant  state  of  war.      Dyaks, 

Utos,  and  Ilongotes  never  go  unarmed,  even 

for    a    few    paces;     they    sleep    with    their 

weapons    beside    them.      The  Orang    Punan 

of  Borneo  are  seldom  seen  without  a  paddle 

in  one  hand  and  a  blow-gun  in  the  other  ;  in 

^   r.i-^^„„  .-„„i       <-  i      it,  i_i        Q-       •       .      Blow-gun,  arrows,  and  quiver,  from  Borneo — one- 

a  strong  contrast  to  the  peaceable  effemmate         l^^Y.  real  size.    (Stockholm  Museum.) 
Javanese,  Macassarese,  or  Padang  Sumatrans, 

with  their  delight  in  fanciful  ornamental  weapons,  five-lobed  daggers,  three-pointed 
spears,  and  the  like.  In  Celebes,  ornamental  shields  are  hung  up  in  the  house, 
and  the  inhabitant  looks  to  them  for  protection.  The  Negritos  of  East  Luzon 
have  only  bows  and  arrows.  The  Ibilaos  are  reputed  excellent  archers  ;  but 
they  shoot  the  wild  pigs  which  they  take  in  nets  only  at  short  ranges.  The 
Igorrotes  whom    Hans    Meyer    saw  were,   as   a   rule,  not    acquainted  witli   this 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER   PROPERTY  OF   THE   MALAYS        415 


weapon,    though     the     Guinanese    have 
words  for  bow  and  arrow.     A  Hne  drawn 
east    of    Sumbawa,    Celebes,    and     the 
Philippines  divides  the  region  in  which 
the  bow  is  generally  diffused  from  that 
in  which    the    blow -gun    predominates. 
The  form  of  bow  prevailing  in  the  eastern 
airchipelago    is    simple,   and   has    affinity 
with   one    of    the    New    Guinea    forms. 
Where  the  bow  is  used  by  Bugises  and 
others,  it  is  in  forms  imported  from  Asia. 
Among  the  Dyaks,  Utos,  and  other 
Bornean    tribes    the   blow -gun    replaces 
the   bow.      This     consists     among    the 
Tubus  of  one  bamboo  inserted  in  another, 
among    the    Dyaks    of    a  tube    of    iron- 
wood,  the   length   of   a  man,  smoothed 
with  rough  leaves   and   furnished  on  its 
front  edge  with  a  lance-point  fitting  like 
a  bayonet  on  to  an  iron  hook,  probably 
for  sighting.     Through  this  instrument, 
called  sumpit,  the  Dyak  blows  his  arrows. 
They  are  light  and  thin,  i  o  to  12  inches 
in  length,  and   made  of  bamboo.      The 
sharp  point  is  poisoned,  and  for  killing 
large  animals  the   arrows   are  furnished 
with   barbs.      At    the   butt -end    of   the 
arrow  is  a  piece  of  pith  fitting  the  calibre 
of  the  tube,  to  serve  at  once  as  feather 
and  "gas-check."      With    these    missiles 
a  Dyak   can    bring    down   the   smallest 
bird    with  accuracy   at    fifty    yards    dis- 
tance, so  that  the  weapon  is  more  effec- 
tive than  the  weak,  unevenly  made  bows 
used  by  the  forest  tribes  of  the  Philip- 
pines with   their   clumsy   arrows.      The 
quiver,    made    of    bamboo,    is    provided 
with  hoops  of  plaited  rattan  and  a  bam- 
boo cover.      The  top  is   often   adorned 
with  a  snail -shell.      The    less    civilized 
Formosans    carry    bow    and    arrows    of 
genuine  Malay  shape,  and   so   also   the 
Alfurs    of   Ceram.     Their  bows   are    of 
iron-wood,    the    strings    of    rattan,    the 
arrow-heads  of  iron  or  bamboo  ;  quivers 
they  have  none.     The  Alfurs  of  Tarandu 
use  both  bow  and  blow-gun.     A  cross- 
bow of  practical   construction,   not,  like 


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Blow-gun,  small  quiver,  and  spears  of  the  Kahayan 
Dyaks  of  South  Borneo  ;  bow,  arrows,  and  quiver 
from  Poggi.     (Munich  Museum.) 


4i6 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


that   of   the  Fans  shown  on   p.  86,  apparent  only,  is  found  among    the  Nico- 
barese,  together  with  a  very  simple  bow  for  shooting  pigeons. 

The  poisoned  arrows  of  Java  and  Borneo  are  among  the  most  effective  that 
are  known.  The  poison  used  in  Java,  called  chettik,  comes  from  the  Strychnos 
tieutd ;  another,  antias,  from  Antiaris  toxicaria,  the  "  Upas."    Both  affect  the  heart. 


Mandaus  or  swords,  krisses,  and  knives:  (i)  from  South  Celebes;  (2)  from  the  Batang-lupar  Dyaks  ;  (3)  from 
Java  ;  (4)  from  Gilolo  ;  (5)  from  Java  ;  (6)  from  the  Kahayan  Dyaks  ;  (7)  from  Menlawei ;  (8)  from  the 
Rejangs  of  Sumatra — one-sixth  real  size.     (Munich  Museum. ) 


The  Dyak  poison,  ipoh,  is  also  from  an  Antiaris.  The  arrow-poisons  of  the 
Philippine  tribes  lose  their  effect  when  not  fresh.  Here  too  the  forest  tribes  are 
regarded  as  dangerous  poison-brewers,  and  European  travellers  are  often  warned 
by  friendly  natives  against  accepting  food  from  them. 

Firearms  have  made  considerable  progress.  In  Formosa,  bows  and  arrows 
have  been  almost  driven  out  by  Chinese  matchlocks.  The  admirable  armourers 
of  Java,  Sumatra,  Bali,  Celebes,  and  Borneo  can  also  construct  firearms.     The 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER  PROPERTY  OF  THE  MALAYS        417 


Sassaks  of  Lombok  even  bore  their  own  gun-barrels.  A  round  bar  of  iron  is 
stuck  perpendicularly  in  the  ground,  and  a  drill  is  inserted,  attached  to  a  bamboo 
with  a  cross-handle.  In  order  to  increase  the  pressure,  a  basket  is  woven  round 
the  bamboo  and  filled  with  stones.  The  Battaks  carve  stocks  in  correct  style  and 
know  how  to  make  powder.  They  find  sulphur  in  their  own  volcanic  country, 
and  contrive  to  get  saltpetre  by  washing  the  urine-soaked  earth  under  the  houses. 
Pieces  of  bamboo  serve  for  cartridge-cases;  and  bits  of  coral  are  ground  into 
bullets.  The  fact  that  in  1570  Manilla  possessed  guns  of  native  casting,  and  that 
the  Sultans  of  Sulu  have  for  a  long  time  disposed  of  a  formidable  artillery,  has 
caused  the  question  to  be  raised  whether  the  Chinese  had  not  introduced  the  art 
of  casting  cannon  before  the  arrival  of  Europeans.  But  it  seems  simpler  to  explain 
the  facts  by  the  operations  of  Portuguese  and  Spanish  renegades.  In  battle  these 
races  shoot  away  their  powder  quickly,  so  that  the  affair  has,  after  all,  to  be  decided 
by  spear  and  throwing-knife. 

The  spear  holds  an  inferior  place  among  Malay  weapons.  It  is  mainly  an 
implement  of  hunting  or  an  ornament,  especially  in  Java,  and  only  among 
certain  races,  as  in  Sulu,  takes  its  place  beside  the  kampilan  and  the  kriss,  among 
the  more  serious  equipment  for  war.  But  among  the  Igorrotes  of  Luzon  it  is 
the  chief  weapon  ;  there  a  distinction  is  made  between  javelins  with  bamboo  heads 
and  thrusting  spears  with  arrow-shaped  iron  heads ;  the  Alfurs  of  Ceram  also 
still  use  a  spear-head  of  bamboo.  Among  the  Dyaks  a  long  spear  is  used  for 
boar-hunting ;  among  the  Maanjans  of  south-east  Borneo  hardly  any  man  goes 
out  without  spear  and  sword  or  hunting  knife.  It  acquires,  however,  practical 
importance  principally  among  the  hunting  tribes,  the  Lubus  of  Central  Sumatra. 
The  Ilongotes  of  Luzon  do  not  pay  so  much  attention  to  it  as  to  the  kampilan. 
In  making  the  head  they  do  not  confine  themselves  to  any  special  shape,  but  suit 
it  to  their  piece  of  iron  ;  the  shaft  is  always  formed  from  the  "pahna  brava"  {Corypha 
minor).  The  Formosan  spear,  three  or  four  yards  in  length,  has  frequently  a 
Chinese  knife  at  its  head  ;  in  Borneo  it  takes  the  form,  as  we  have  seen,  of  a 
bayonet  fastened  on  the  blow-gun.  In  the  northern  Nicobar  Islands,  ornamental 
spears  are  found  in  the  huts  ;  these  are  highly  esteemed  as  marks  of  opulence 
but  are  never  used.     These  spears  are  manufactured  only  in  Chowra. 

Everywhere,  away  to  Malacca,  the  national  weapon  is  something  between  a 
hunting  knife  and  a  sword,  though  more  recent  than  the  bow,  blow-gun,  and 
arrow,  for  it  is  not  found  upon  the  sculptures  of  Parambanam,  which  reach  down  to 
the  thirteenth  century  ;  it  has  become  closely  interwoven  with  the  life  of  these  races. 
We  meet  with  it,  in  a  simple  form,  as  the  kampilan  of  the  Ilongotes,  who,  though 
in  other  respects  poor,  are  clever  workers  in  iron  and  understand  how  to  temper 
it.  They  generally  ornament  with  gold  wire  the  lower  part  of  the  one-edged, 
scarcely  curved  blades,  while  the  end  is  fastened  with  wire  to  the  brass-covered 
handle.  To  give  a  better  grip  this  is  bound  with  threads  dipped  in  resin,  the 
sheath  is  of  wood,  and  consists  of  two  pieces  fastened  together  with  broad  bands 
of  rush.  The  kampilan  is  attached  to  a  belt  of  fine  webbing  worn  over  the  shoulder 
or  round  the  body.  We  notice  an  agreement  in  details  which  can  have  no  doubt 
as  to  the  common  origin  of  these  weapons.  Whether  it  be  the  bols  of  the  Igorrotes, 
or  the  mandan  of  the  Dyaks,  everywhere  we  find  a  one-edged,  slightly  curved 
blade  with  a  broad  back,  a  wooden  hilt  bound  with  wire,  a  wooden  sheath,  a  cord 
to  hang  it  by ;  pretty  inlaid  work  of  brass  and  perforated  pattern  at  the  back, 

2  E 


4i8 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


richly  carved  hilt,  and  ornamented  sheath  complete  the  description.  Hilts  set 
with  human  teeth  occur  among  the  head-hunters,  and  here  we  also  find  the  weapon 
finished  off  by  a  small  sheath  of  bark  attached  to  the  lower  side  of  the  scabbard, 
containing  a  little  knife  with  a  long  handle,  with  which  the  Dyak  cuts  off  his 
victims'  heads  and  strips  the  flesh  from  them.  This  appears  also  independently 
among  the  poorer  inhabitants  of  the  islands  as  a  hunting  and  working  knife,  while 
wealthy  and  zealous  head-hunters  have  half-a-dozen  hanging  on  their  walls  as 
ornament.  I 

The  principal  weapon  among  the  Mussulman  Malays  is  the  wavy  kriss,  the 
national   arm  among  the  Sassaks  of  Lombok.      The  head-hunters  test  the  sharp- 


Krisses  :  (i)  from  Celebes  ;   (2)  said  to  be  from  Bali — one-fourth  real  size. 
(Munich  Museum. ) 


ness  of  the  edge,  by  preference,  on  the  hair  of  their  skins.  Carved  hilts  orna- 
mented with  gold  and  precious  stones  are  among  the  most  characteristic  products 
of  Malayan  art  industry,  and  one  can  trace  upon  them  mythological  themes 
gradually  fading  away  into  ornament.  The  flame-shaped  damascened  blade,  the 
serpentine  or  dragon  figures  of  the  hilt,  the  decoration  of  the  sheath,  raise  the 
kriss  to  the  rank  of  a  weapon  closely  allied  with  religious  objects  ;  salutary  texts 
are  often  engraved  upon  it ;  in  Wetter,  a  talisman  wrapped  up  in  rags  is  concealed 
in  the  scabbard.  The  Una,  weapon  and  tool  among  the  mountain  tribes  of  Luzon, 
is  a  short,  bluntly-triangular  blade,  broadest  at  the  end,  with  the  opposite  edges 
convex  and  concave.  In  Java,  crescent-shaped  knives,  with  a  handle  fixed  to  the 
concave  side,  have  been  found  in  graves.  Elsewhere,  old  knives  have  been  found 
of  a  peculiar  shape,  with  appendages  resembling  throwing  knives. 

The  Ifugaos  of  Luzon,  who  are  equipped  with  spear,  bow,  and  arrow,  are  said, 
on  their  head-hunting  expeditions,  to  make  use  of  the  lasso,  commonly  employed 
in  hunting  the  stag. 

Among  the  tribes  that  have  received  Indian  influence,  a  great  variety  of  pro- 
tective weapons  is  found.     Wooden  or  wicker-work  shields  are  to  be  mentioned 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER  PROPERTY  OF   THE  MALAYS        419 


in  the  first  instance  ;  the  wooden  shield  is  painted,  covered  with  buffalo  hide,  or 

adorned   with    inlaid    shell-work,  especially  in  the    Eastern    Archipelago,  in  the 

Moluccas,   and   elsewhere.      As    we    pass   from    group   to 

group  special  forms   appear  ;  thus,  among  the   Ilongotes, 

the  simple  shield  of  light  wood  is  deeply  incurved  above 

and  below.      It  is  dyed  red  with  the  juice  of  some  plant, 

and  adorned  with  carvings.      Among  the  Dyak-like  tribes 

in  some  part  of  Celebes,  and  in  the  north  of  Nias,  it  is 

heavy,  of  an  elongated  hexagonal  shape,  and  almost  as 

high  as  a  man.      It  has  a  raised  rib  running  throughout 

its  length,  and  is  painted  on  both  sides  with  arabesques, 

mostly  red.    Occasionally,  too,  it  is  decorated  with  human 

hair;      The   inhabitants    of   the    Talaut    Islands    have    a 

narrow  pattern  of  shield,  prettily  ornamented.     Among 

the  Alfurs  of  Ceram  the  shield  is  narrow  in   proportion 

to  its  bearer's  claim   to  valour,  and  for  every  head  which 

he  cuts  off  he  breaks  a  shell  out  of  the  shield,  replacing 

it  by  a  tuft  of  human  hair.      In  the  greater  part  of  Nias 

the  shield  is  lighter  and  of  elegant  shape ;  this  is  chiefly 

used   in  hand-to-hand    fighting ;    another    heavier    kind, 

carried  not  with  the  fist  but   on  the  forearm,  serves  for 

covering.     In  Sulu  also  we  find  two  shields,  the  smaller 

and  most  frequently  carried,  of  circular  or  elliptic  shape, 

covers  only  half  the  body,  while  the  large  shield  forms  a  dagger  from  Borneo-one-fifth 

^  ■' '  °  real  size.    (Roy.  Mus. ,  Leyden. ) 

complete  covering  ;  both  are  made  of  hard  wood  and  often 

covered  with  buffalo -leather.  Peculiar  patterns  are  found  in  the  Wetter  shields 
made  of  cow-hide  cut  out  into  the  form  of  a  cross,  and  in  those  of  Nanusa  or  Talaut 
with  the  narrow  end  shaped  like  a  crocodile's  head. 


(i)  Sling  and  sheath  of  {2)  Igorrote  chopping-knife  ;  (3)  Guinan  hatchet,  from  Luzon — one-sixth  real  size. 

(From  Dr.  Hans  Meyer's  Collection. ) 

Armour  of  some  sort,  without   being   universal,  occurs   in    all   parts   of  the 
archipelago.     In  Sulu  it  is  only  the  humblest  class  who  are  content  with  shields. 


420 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Many  persons  wrap  their  bodies  in  a  thick  roll  of  cotton  wadding  ;  others  wear 
helmet  and  cuirass  of  buffalo-hide.  Bastian  mentions  mail-coats  of  plaited  string 
from  Mandhar  in  the  Moluccas,  fastening  at  the  back,  and  studded  both  before 

and  behind  with  the 
broad  ends  of  Conus 
and    Trombus    shells. 
In  the  Eastern  Archi- 
pelago we  find  mail- 
vests  of  strong  coco- 
nut    fibre     closely 
woven ;  in  Arru,  upon 
hoops  of  rattan.  Dyak 
head  -  hunters      have 
them        strengthened 
with  iron  rings  as  in 
woodcut  on   p.  423 ; 
and    they    also    wear 
arrow -proof     jackets, 
wadded   with   cotton, 
cuirasses      thickly 
plated  with  the  scales 
of  the  armadillo,  and 
gorgets    of     buffalo - 
hide.      The  warrior's 
equipment     is     com- 
pleted   by    a    basket 
or    pouch    of   plaited 
work,  which  is  carried 
on  the  back  or  the  arm, 
and  serves  to  receive 
food,  flint   and   steel, 
and  decapitated  heads. 
!         The     most     con- 
spicuous     peculiarity 
of   the    Malay   house 
is  that  it  is  built  on 
piles,     as     shown     in 
our  plate,  "A  Tagal 
Village."      This  style 
persists    even    in  the 
European  settlements.. 
At    Padang,    in    Su- 
matra, the  houses  of  European  residents  stand  on  piles  a  yard  or  two  in  height. 
On  this  account  Banjermassing  has  been  called  the  Venice  of  Borneo,  as  Palembang, 
on  the  River  Musi,  that  of  Sumatra.     The  most  curious  instance  of  this  arrange- 
ment is  the  pile -built   town  of    Kiluaru,  on  a  little  sandbank  in  the  high  sea 
between  Ceramlaut  and  Kiser,  where  is  an  emporium  of  the  trade  of  the  Moluccas, 
and  New  Guinea. 


Igorrote  and  Guinan  spears  and  shields — one-tenth  real  size. 
Dr.  Hans  Meyer's  Collection. ) 


(From 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,  AND   OTHER  PROPERTY  OF  THE  MALAYS        421 


That  the  motive  of  this  style  of 
building  was  protection  against  man 
and  beast  is  shown  by  the  decrease 
of  pile-dwellings  proportionately  to 
the  growth  of  public  security.     Thus, 
among  the   Milanos   of  Borneo,  all 
the  houses  stood  formerly  on  piles  of 
hard  wood,  40  feet  high.     Nowadays 
there  is  free  intercourse  among  the 
dwellers  by  all  the  rivers,  from  the 
Rejang  to  the  Bintulu,  and  the  houses 
have  come  down  to  the  earth,  or  at 
most  a  small  space  is  left  between 
the  ground  and  the  bamboo  flooring. 
By  the    sea,   however,   and    on    the   \ 
banks  of  the  larger  rivers,  pile-dwell-    \ 
ings  retain  their  reason  for  existence,     \V 
both  as  protection  against  floods  and  "^ 
swamps,  and  as  facilitating  the  task    \K 
of  getting  food  from  the  water.      In  .  W 
the  Philippines   there  are  houses   of  ,<>^ 
which  the  bamboo  poles  and  wicker-    \^> 
work  are  but  little  above  the  flood 
level    of  the   water.     These   houses  * 
are  set  close  together,  narrow  passages 
alone    running    between    the    rows ; 
and  the  village   straggles  far  along 
the  shore.      When  we  find    Dyaks 
and   Battaks   building    in    the   same 
style  on  high  ground,  we  may  assume 
that   they  formerly  dwelt   down   by 
the  rivers,  and  thus  merely  retained 
their  accustomed  fashion  of  building. 
But  there  is  an  even  nearer  reason 
in  the  security  of  the  elevated  posi- 
tion.    When  the  tree-stem  with  the 
steps  cut  in  it  has  been  hauled  up, 
the   building    is   like   a    castle   with 
the  drawbridge  raised  ;    and  this,  in  ji 
a  head  -  hunting  country  especially, 
must  add   materially  to    the  safety  ^S^^ 
of  the  domestic  hearth.      For  addi- 
tional security  the  approaches  consist     ;H 
only  of  felled  tree-stems.      Among 
the    objections    to    pile -building    on 
dry  land  are  want  of  cleanliness  and 
defective  stability.  '^:nft^i^^  WeVL^o  fS 

Defensible     positions    are     every-         (S)  from  Borneo.      (Munich  Museum, ) 


from 


from   Men- 
Gorontalo  ; 


422 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


where  selected  with  remarkable  discrimination.  Many  of  the  kampongs  or 
villages  of  the  Sumatran  Battaks,  of  the  Ilongotes,  and  others,  are  placed  upon 
almost  inaccessible  pinnacles.  Favourite  spots  are  the  little  plateaux  formed 
by  the  broadening  of  a  mountain  ridge.  But  other  defences  are  added.  In 
the  lower  parts  of  the  Battak  country  nearly  all  the  kampongs  were,  in  Jung- 
huhn's  time,  surrounded   with    high   palisades,  behind  which  watch-towers  rose. 


Shield,  blow-gun,  spear,  and  swords  of  the  Torabjas  in  Central  Celebes — one-sixth  real  size. 
(Frankfort  City  Museum. ) 

Now  all  this  has  naturally  disappeared  wherever  the  Dutch  government  has 
put  an  end  to  internal  fighting.  Among  the  Battaks  safe  dwelling-places 
are  also  found  at  the  point  where  a  tree -stem  forks  or  throws  off  branches ; 
the  central  shoot  is  lopped  off,  and  the  surrounding  branches  remain.  The 
Ilongotes  of  Luzon  erect  at  the  tops  of  trees  their  forest-huts,  made  from  the 
leaves  of  the  nipa-^aXm  and  bamboo,  and  supported  on  tree-stems.     Each  of  these 


DJiESS,    WEAPONS,  AND   OTHER  PROPERTY  OF    THE  MALAYS        423 

little  houses  serves  as  a  tranquil  abode  for  a  whole  family.  The  Orang-Sakei  and 
the  Lubus  of  Sumatra  also  live  to  some  extent  in  trees. 

The  Ilongotes  place  prickly  bamboo  stems  round  their  huts  for  security,  stick 
sharp  arrows  in  the  ground,  and  make  pit-falls,  so  that  even  a  friend  needs  to 
announce  his  arrival  some  way  off.  Night  and  day  sentries  are  posted.  When 
Spanish  troops  are  looking  for  a  fugitive  criminal,  their  approach  is  known  long 
before,  and  if  it  is  not  desired  to  give  the  criminal  up,  nothing  can  be  done ;  they 
hide  in  the  forest  where  bullets  cannot  reach  them.  The  only  thing  is  to  burn 
their  huts ;  and  these,  says  Schadenberg,  are  rebuilt  in  a  day,  as  soon  as  the 
soldiers  are  gone. 

A  further  characteristic  of  Malay  architecture  is  rhe  steep  roof,  often   50  feet 


Mail-coats  worn  by  the  Dyaks  of  South-east  Borneo. 

high,  and  coming  far  down.  In  the  Alfur  huts  it  comes  down  to  the  ground,  and 
at  the  back  side  at  once  includes  and  shuts  off  the  fire-place.  It  is  a  gable  roof 
above  a  rectangular  or  square  ground-plan.  Round  edifices  are  as  scarce  here  as 
in  Africa  they  are  common.  In  Timor  we  find  them  oval,  with  conical  roof ;  in 
Tabelo  there  are  octagonal  huts  ;  in  the  Nicobars,  dome-shaped  roofs  with  angular 
substructure  of  stakes.  In  rectangular  buildings  the  walls  usually  have  an  outward 
slope.  The  thatch  is  of  palm  leaves.  In  more  elaborate  houses,  such  as  the  out- 
buildings of  chiefs'  dwellings,  the  walls  are  prettily  wattled  with  palm  fibres.  The 
gable  end  often  bears  buffalo-heads  carved  in  wood,  and  other  emblems,  or  inscribed 
tablets  of  the  nature  of  amulets.  In  windy  uplands  the  roofs  are  protected  by 
poles  from  being  blown  off.  \ 

The  interior  arrangements  vary  with  the  degree  of  civilization,  and  depend 
further  upon  the  character  of  the  dwelling — whether  occupied  jointly  or  severally, 


424 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


whether  the  families  occupy  separate  apartments  or  one  in  common.  The  Dyaks 
affect  the  long  or  village  house,  80  or  90  yards  in  length,  in  which  thirty  or  forty 
families  live  together,  but  in  separate  rooms  ;  while  among  the  Battaks  four  to 
six  families  at  most  occupy  one  house,  but  they  all  live  together  in  one  room. 
The  separation  of  the  women's  apartments  is  a  peculiarity  of  the  Dyaks,  but 
unknown  among  the  Battaks.  The  simple  houses  of  the  Mussulman  Acheenese 
form  an  oblong  square,  containing  only  the  most  indispensable  necessaries — one 
or  two  pots  and  pans,  a  few  mats,  and  a  sleeping-place  shut  off  by  a  curtain, 
which  in  the  better  families  is  regarded  as  the  owner's  apartment.     There  are 


Malay  utensils:  (i)  Comb  from  Timor;  (2)  Knife  from  the  Philippines;  (3)  Sickle  from  Java;  (4)  Cow-bells 
from  Sumatra  ;  (5)  Brasier  and  rice-pot  from  Java  ;  (6)  Basket  from  Celebes  ;  (7)  Rice  basket  from  Java,  lor 
cooling  steamed  rice  in  the  cover  ;   (8)  Brass  pipe  of  the  Battaks.      (Dresden  Ethnographical  Museum.) 

differences  also  in  the  fashion  of  building.  The  Battaks  of  Tobah  build  far  more 
solidly  than  the  Dyaks,  with  strong  beams  and  mighty  planks,  putting  much  art 
and  industry  into  the  carving  and  painting  of  the  woodwork.  An  outbuilding 
serves  in  its  upper  part  to  store  rice,  in  the  lower  story  as  a  place  of  sojourn  during 
the  day  for  certain  people,  also  as  a  sleeping-place,  and  as  a  council-house.  They 
even  have  verandahs  on  the  narrow  sides  of  their  lofty  houses.  A  house  has  to 
last  until  the  children  are  grown  up.  Dyak  house-building  is  rendered  too  easy 
by  the  gigantic  development  of  the  bamboo  in  their  country.  Throughout  the 
archipelago  plank  houses  are  considered  better  than  bamboo  houses.  In  the  huts 
baskets  hang  from  the  roof,  and  in  the  eastern  islands  the  jaws  of  pigs  and  deer 
as   ornament.     Against   the  wall   stands   a   great  earthenware  vessel,  or  a  large 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER   PROPERTY  OF  THE  MALAYS        425 

bamboo  with  the  partitions  of  all  knots  except  the  last  knocked  out.  Among 
the  Battaks  the  strength  of  girls  is  measured  by  the  number  of  such  vessels  they 
can  bring  from  the  spring  to  the  house.  The  dwellings  of  people  of  importance 
are  distinguished  externally  only  by  their  circuit  and  height.     The  interior  of  the 


A  house  in  Sumatra.      (From  a  model  in  the  Dresden  Museum.) 


palace  of  a  Moro  chief  in  Mindanao  is  not  divided  by  partitions  ;  mats  and  cushions 
lie  in  one  corner,  in  another  women  and  girls  are  occupied  in  peeling  fruit,  in 
another  nets,  hooks,  and  fishing-tackle  are  piled  up,  spears  and  krisses  hang  on 
the  walls,  and  the  middle  space  is  the  reception-room.      Civilization  is  shown  in 


Plough  used  by  the  Triamans  of  Bencoolen.     (Dresden  Museum. ) 

a  few  Stools,  without  backs,  of  bamboo  wicker-work,  for  guests  ;  the  Mores  sit 
cross-legged  upon  the  floor  of  bamboo  poles.  The  furniture  of  a  Dyak  house, 
again,  a  mat  or  two,  cooking  pots  and  utensils  round  the  hearth,  which  is  placed 
at  the  entrance,  would  seem  poor  without  the  warlike  finery  of  mandaus,  spears, 
blow-guns,  shields,  and  paddles,  on  the  walls.  A  longitudinal  partition  of  bamboo 
divides  off  the  common  living-room,  which  is  also  the  sleeping-room  of  the  youths 


426 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


and  unmarried  men,  the  remainder  is  subdivided  into  smaller  rooms  according  to 
the  number  of  the  married  members  of  the  family  and  the  girls.  In  front  of  the 
door  of  the  dwelling  room  is  a  platform.  Light  enters  only  through  gaps  in  the 
bamboo  wall.  As  a  rule,  no  light  burns  at  night  for  fear  of  attracting  ghosts,  but 
in  emergencies  candles  of  resin  are  lighted.  Among  the  Vicols  large  shells  with 
rush  wicks  serve  as  primitive  lamps.  Hagen  says  that  among  the  Tobah  Battaks 
he  never  saw  any  light  save  that  of  the  hearth  and  the  opium  lamp.  Among  the 
shepherds  of  Java  the  practice  of  kindling  fire  by  rubbing  sticks  is  still  found,  but 

elsewhere  it  has  among  the  civilized  tribes 
been  replaced  by  flint  and  touchwood. 
In  Ternate  they  strike  sparks  upon  tinder 
with  a  sherd  of  porcelain  and  a  splinter 
of  bamboo. 

Not  only  do  the  aquatic  Malays  pass 
the  greatest  part  of  their  life  on  the  un- 
certain element,  but  in  the  more  thickly- 
peopled  parts  of  the  archipelago  perman- 
ently-inhabited rafts  lie  at  anchor  beside 
the  pile  dwellings.  Whether  the  custom 
be  originally  Chinese  or  not,  it  has  quickly 
taken  root  among  the  Malays,  who  for 
months  together  carry  rice,  sago,  and 
rattan  down  their  sluggish  rivers  on  rafts 
to  market.  Palembang  has  a  whole  suburb 
of  this  kind. 

Common  houses  called  balei  or  baileo 
serve  in  many  places  as  sleeping-places  for 
unmarried  men,  sometimes  as  many  as  a 
hundred.  Herein  also  are  hung  up  the 
heads  of  slain  persons  and  other  trophies, 
while  among  the  less  savage  Christians 
Agricultural  implements  used  by  the  igorrotes  •  com-cobs,  bulls'  heads,  and   the  like,  take 

^S)'^^'^r^'-$^^^r^^'^    P^^'^^'    ^"'i    f^^ti^^l^    ^re    celebrated. 
Collection.)  As  a  rule,  they  have  either  no  walls  at  all, 

,•-.,,.,     ^  or  discontinuous  walls.      In   Sumatra  there 

a  similar  kind  of  common  house  where  the  head-men  meet  for  consultation, 
ana  travellers  can  pass  the  night;  many  of  them  are  richly  adorned  with  carved 
work.  In  front  of  the  houses  of  the  most  respected  inhabitants  there  hangs,  under 
the  roof  of  the  ^«^«-shed,  a  tom-tom  known  as  tabu,  which  is  beaten  on  the 
occasion  of  festivals,  accidents,  and  so  on.  In  West  Borneo  this  assembly  house, 
where  the  young  men  sleep,  takes  the  form  which  elsewhere  is  unfamiliar  to  the 
Malay  style  of  a  circle  with  a  central  hearth. 

The  arrangement  of  the  villages  differs  according  to  the  civilization.     Forest 
r.  P?r^"  f      ^^""^  ^  tendency  to  isolated  habitation,  and  accordingly  in 

tne  ^hihppines  the  single  homestead  or  bario  is  distinguished  from  the  village  or 
rancherta.  We  find  the  forest  nomads'  dislike  of  the  plains  no  less  among  the 
W  egritos  and  Ilongotes  of  Luzon  than  among  the  Lubus  of  Sumatra.  The  Battaks, 
witn  their   highly  developed   terrace  cultivation,  can  more  easily  remain  in  the 


DRSSS,    WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER   PROPERTY  OF   THE  MALAYS        427 


mountains  than  the  Dyaks,  with  their  passion  for  clearing  a  new  rice-field  every 
year  or  two.  Yet  even  within  narrow  limits  the  position  of  the  villages  varies. 
In  the  Sindang  and  Roepit  districts  of  Central  Sumatra,  the  inhabited  districts  lie 
close  to  the  mountains  or  actually  among  them.  On  the  upper  Ravas  and  its 
tributaries  the  mountain  country  is  quite  uninhabited  ;  the  Tagals  build  almost 
solely  by  the  water,  the  neighbouring  tribes  only  in  the  mountains.  The  maritime 
Malays  and  Bugises  have  notably  furnished  the  coast  tracts  and  lowlands  with  a 
dense  population  of  colonists.  Since  European  dominion  has  spread  over  almost 
every  district  of  the  archipelago,  the  population  has  increased  very  much  both  in 
number  and  distribution.  The  extent  of  the  villages  holds  no  proportion  to  the 
number  of  the  people,  agriculture  does  not  permit  of  the  growth  of  large  settle- 
ments. In  general  a  good  deal  of  land  belongs  to  a  house  ;  thus  in  Padang  you 
must  travel  2\  to  3  miles  from  the  landing-place  before  reaching  the  last  houses. 
The  Igorrote  rancheries  of  Luzon,  in  a  mountain  country  with  very  extensive 
fields,  seldom  contain,  according  to  Dr.  Hans  Meyer,  more  than  250  inhabitants. 
In  the  cities  where  Europeans  have  not  represented  the  interests  of  sanitation,  the 
Chinese  and  Further  Indian  system  of  packing  together  has  prevailed. 

Agriculture  among  all  the  Malay  tribes  is  primarily  concerned  with  rice ; 
maize  came,  later  into  association  with  it  in  some  districts — the  Philippines,  for 
instance — as  the  crop  second  in  importance.  The  very  breeding  of  cattle  is 
connected  with  rice-farming,  since  the  buffaloes  work  in  the  marshy  fields.  Even 
where  cultivation  is  scanty,  one  always  finds  paddy-fields  in  the  swampy  bottoms. 
Elsewhere  mountain-rice  is  grown  on  dry  ground  ;  besides  this  crop  the  Ilongotes 
of  Luzon  live  only  on  maize  and  edible  roots.  The  nomad  Lubus  of  Sumatra, 
too,  grow  rice  and  maize.  In  the  eastern  parts  of  the  archipelago,  onward  from 
Borneo,  sago  is  held  in  increasing  esteem,  until  we  find  it  the  chief  crop  in  the 
Moluccas  and  New  Guinea.  Beside  this,  tobacco  is  met  with  in  the  heart  of 
Borneo,  as  well  as  among  the  mountain  tribes  of  northern  Luzon.  Widely  spread, 
also,  are  the  sugar-palm  {arenga),  the  sugar-cane,  plantains,  caladium,  sweet  potato, 
and  tapioca.  As  a  food-stuff  the  sweet  potato  stands  close  after  rice.  Palms, 
papaws,  durians,  and  other  fruit  trees,  make  the  villages  in  the  cultivated  parts  of 
Formosa,  Java,  Sumatra,  and  Celebes,  into  verdant  orchard-landscapes.  Apart 
from  European  influence,  the  Battaks  stand  highest  as  agriculturists.  The 
magnificent  terrace-farming  of  the  natives  of  Java,  Bali,  and  Lombok,  though  in 
great  measure  of  Indian  origin,  has  only  its  present  high  development  under 
Dutch  rule.  The  Battaks  in  the  highlands  of  Sumatra  even  use  a  plough,  the 
share  of  which,  a  straight,  rather  narrow,  iron  blade,  is  set  in  a  wooden  handle. 
There  is  a  simple  pole  with  a  wooden  yoke  for  one  or  two  buffaloes.  The  Tobah 
Battaks  claim  to  have  invented  this  plough  ;  at  any  rate,  they  had  all  the 
essentials  for  it.  A  similar  plough  in  South  Celebes,  where  Wallace  saw  also  a 
rude  wooden  barrow  in  operation,  has  the  share  of  hard  palm-wood.  For  breaking 
the  clods  the  Battaks  use  a  wooden  club.  In  former  times  the  Battaks  devoted 
themselves  to  agriculture  on  a  more  extended  scale  ;  wide  tracts  of  cleared  forest- 
land  indicate  their  places  of  abode  in  Sumatra.  Now,  however,  they  are  in  fact 
more  stationary  than  the  Dyaks,  although  they  carry  on  cattle-breeding  as  well. 
In  some  districts  they  also  manure  the  fields,  carrying  dung  to  them  in  baskets, 
or  leading. the  drainage  from  the  cow-houses  over  the  land.  In  the  eastern 
archipelago  there  is  no  such  practice. 


428 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Quite  apart  from  the  plantation  of  coffee,  tea,  sugar-cane,  and  spices, — which 
the  Dutch  have  made  compulsory  upon  the  Javanese,  and  the  people  of  Padang 
and  the  fruitful  Minahassa  country,  as  the  Spaniards  have  done  in  the  Philippines 
in  regard  to  tobacco,  Manilla  hemp,  and  cacao, — we  find  that  the  indigenous  agricul- 
ture, and  above  all  that  of  rice,  shows  marked  gradations.  It  had  obviously,  even 
before  the  European  time,  perhaps  even  before  the  Indian  time,  been  greatly 
advanced  by  reason  of  a  higher  civilization  in  the  Western  Archipelago.  Java, 
Sumatra,  and  the  Philippines,  in  which  sixty  different  species  of  rice  are  known, 
stand  higher  in  this  respect  than  the  rest  of  the  islands.  Battaks  and  Dyaks  live 
mainly  by  agriculture  ;  but  among  the  Battaks  the  rice  is  grown  in  fields  laid  out 
artificially  in  terraces,  and  irrigated  by  means  of  long  water-leats ;  while  the 
Dyaks,  owing  to  deficient  irrigation,  have  to  lay  out  new  fields  every  two  years 


Hoes  from  (i)  Singapore  ;  {2)  Sumatra — one-fourth  real  size.     (Munich  Museum.) 

in  grubbed-up  forest-land.  And  yet  the  Battaks  do  not  represent  the  highest 
point  attained  ;  this  is  found  in  the  remote  little-visited  Nias  Archipelago,  off  the 
coast  of  Sumatra,  which  was  probably  colonised  by  the  Battaks.  Among  the 
Tinguians  and  Igorrotes  of  Luzon,  rice  farming  stands  at  a  high  level,  with  its 
arrangement  for  flooding  the  ground,  and  dams  against  inundations.  It  is  most 
meagre  in  the  east,  where  it  comes  into  contact,  as  in  Timorlaut,  with  the  more 
popular  sago  gathering.  Hard  labour  does  not  end  with  the  harvest.  The  daily 
task  of  the  women  begins  with  the  pounding  of  the  rice,  which  is  kept  in  the 
husk.  Even  before  sunrise  it  can  be  heard  far  and  wide,  like  thrashing  with  us  ; 
and  as  with  us  the  village  pump  is  the  centre  of  gossip  and  jokes,  so  here  is  the 
rice-pounding.  The  mortars  are  pieces  of  tree-stem  placed  upright ;  the  pestles, 
heavy  spars  of  wood,  perhaps  i  o  feet  in  length  ;  but  occasionally  rice  is  pounded 
in  holes  made  in  the  rock.  Afterwards  the  rice  is  cleansed  by  winnowing  in  four- 
cornered  troughs  of  wood.  The  man  does  not,  as  a  rule,  begin  his  day's  work 
till  after  his  first  meal,  which  takes  place  at  7  or  8  o'clock  ;  but  on  an  emergency, 
he  may  have  already  done  a  couple  of  hours'  work  in  the  paddy  field.  In  the 
Dyak  villages  of   South-east    Borneo,  the  scene  becomes    lively  every  morning 


BJiESS,    WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER  PROPERTY  OF  THE  MALAYS        429 


about  7  o'clock,  where  men,  women,  and  half-grown  boys  go  out  fully  armed  to 
work.  Here,  besides  rice,  maize,  sugar-cane,  and  plantains  are  grown  in  gardens 
near  the  houses.  At  sunset  they  return,  the  men  bearing  firewood,  the  women 
the  produce  of  the  fields  ;  and  the  latter  have  then  to  set  to  work  at  pounding  rice 
and  filling  the  bamboo  water-vessels.  Only  old  persons,  and  those  who  are 
occupied  in  house  or  boat-building,  remain  at  home.  Rice-growing  demands 
much  toil.  The  sowing  is  done 
upon  rafts  covered  with  earth, 
which  keep  the  germs  constantly 
moist ;  then  the  young  plants 
are  transferred  to  the  fields,  the 
hoeing  of  which  forms  an  im- 
portant branch  of  the  woman's 
labour.  A  more  diiificult  task 
is  the  protection  of  the  fields 
against  the  depredation  of  wild 
swine  and  rats. 

Beside  the  mandau,  with 
which  brushwood  is  cleared  and 
straw  cut,  a  great  instrument 
of  agriculture  is  the  hoe.  The 
iron  blade  is  fastened  by  sinews 
or  bark  thongs  wrapped  cross- 
wise into  a  stock  of  hard  wood, 
which  often  forms  its  means  of 
attachment  to  the  long  curved 
handle,  frequently  ornamented. 
The  women  work  with  a  small 
knife,  and  the  Igorrotes  reap 
their  rice  stalk  by  stalk  with 
a  little  sickle-shaped  knife.  Resin 
is  collected  for  stopping  chinks 
in  wooden  boxes,  and  for  the 
preparation  of  torches  ;  gutta- 
percha, and  wax  from  wild  bees' 
nests ;  in  some  districts  also 
edible  birds'  nests.  Rattan  is 
also  cut,an  indispensable  material 

in  hut  and  boat-building,  and  in  the  manufacture  of  many  articles  of  furniture  ; 
so  much  coveted  too,  as  an  article  of  trade,  that  the  chiefs  of  Borneo  had  a 
monopoly  of  it. 

What  rice  is  to  the  Western  Malays,  sago  is  to  the  Eastern.  Even  m  ^orth 
Borneo  it  is  the  chief  produce  of  the  Milanos.  The  palm  forests  are  communal 
property,  and  felling  the  sago  palm  may  only  be  performed  m  pursuance  of  a 
communal  resolution.  The  stem  is  split  with  a  sword,  the  pith  cut  out  with  a  hoe, 
and  broken  small  with  a  stone  club.  Leaves  stitched  together  form  the  bucket ; 
cylindrical  leaf-stalks,  placed  one  below  another,  make  a  system  of  washing  taps  ; 
and  a  sieve  is  made  of  bast.      In  Ceram,  one  man  can  in  this  way  prepare  in  a 


Battak  hoes  from  Sumatra— one-seventh  real  size.     (Leipzig 
Museum  of  Ethnology. ) 


43° 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


month  so  much  sago  that  the  half  of  it  will  keep  him  for  a  year,  and  with  the 
rest  he  can  buy  knives  and  finery.  The  surplus  of  East  Ceram  provides  for  a 
whole  number  of  neighbouring  islands.  Wallace  calculates  the  cost  of  a  man's 
victuals  in  this  land  of  sago  at  twelve  shillings  a  year. 

Harvest  festivals  hold  a  prominent  position — among  many  tribes  the  most 
prominent.  The  Maanjans  of  Borneo  offer  sacrifices  so  soon  as  the  first  rice  is 
ripe.      Some  of  it  is  sent  into  the  village ;  a  fowl  is  killed  ;  the  whetstone  and 


Javanese  buffalo-cart.     (From  a  photograph. ) 


other  implements  of  field-work  are  symbolically  fed,  and  a  small  carouse  is  held. 
In  every  house  a  fowl  or  a  pig  is  sacrificed,  when,  at  the  November  planting- 
season,  a  little  bird  called  sinrik  (probably  a  kind  of  wagtail),  which  goes  north 
in  April,  first  reappears  ;  it  is  regarded  as  the  messenger  of  the  good  spirits. 

To  cattle-breeding,  nature  has  drawn  narrow  limits  ;  nor  are  the  Malays  (to 
whom  we  can  safely  attribute,  as  their  original  domestic  animals,  only  pigs,  fowls, 
and  dogs,  with  the  subsequent  though  early  addition  of  buffaloes),  save  with  few 
exceptions,  a  cattle-breeding  race.  Even  those  who  have  cattle  and  horses  in 
plenty,  as  in  Tobah,  plough  only  with  buffaloes.  It  may  be  said  that  only  the 
Battaks  devote  much  industry  to  their  herds  of  cows,  buffaloes,  and  pigs  ;  though 
even  they  do  not  in  most  places  milk  either  cows  or  buffaloes.  In  recent  times, 
however,  the  breeding  of  oxen  has  increased  in  Bali ;  while  the  ponies  and  cavalry 
horses  of  Tobah  have  for  some  time  formed  an  article  of  export  from   Sumatra 


BJiESS,    WEAPONS,  AND   OTHER   PROPERTY  OF  THE  MALAYS        431 


and  Sumba.  Buffaloes  are  kep{  for  the  sake  of  the  rice  farms,  even  where  there 
are  no  oxen.  In  addition  to  pigs,  fowls,  and  dogs,  with  an  occasional  stumpy- 
tailed  cat,  which  form  the  main  stock  of  domestic  animals,  goats  are  found 
in  the  highlands.  Some  Dyak  and  Philippine  tribes  breed  dogs  for  food,  and  the 
Igorrotes  are  said  to  do  the  same  by  horses.  With  the  Tagals,  the  Balinese,  and 
the  Sassaks,  duck-rearing  is  an  important  business  ;  but  there  must  be  some  mis- 
understanding about  the  tale  told  of  the  Malays  of  Malacca,  that  their  women 
suckle  monkeys,  fatten  them,  and  eat  them.  Besides,  the  inhabitants  of  the 
animal-frequented  forest  regions  are  very  fond  of  domesticable  animals. 

A  result  of  this   abundance  of  animals  is  that  every  large  island  possesses 

its  hunting  tribes.     Bezoary  stones,  rhinoceros 

ri  ^,„„,=-^^^^M.         hornb,   tigers'    galls,    are    by    Malay,   and    still 

'^Slr^lL^Cr^B=!>«>^"'^    ^^^       moie     b)'     Chmese     superstition     stamped     as 


(i)  Wooden  tureen  and  spoon  from  Luzon— one-third  real  size.     (From  Dr.  Meyer's  Collection)  ; 
(2)  Sumatran  saddle.     {Dresden  Museum. ) 

valuable  elements  in  magic  apparatus.  For  the  larger  hunting  parties,  several 
families  combine.  The  great  nets  of  abaca  (Manilla  hemp),  ten  yards  long 
by  one  and  a  half  wide,  are  stretched  between  the  trees,  so  that  the  game 
when  driven  may  take  one  direction,  where  the  hunters  are  ambushed  with 
javelins,  arrows,  and  dogs.  They  have  no  lack  of  pluck ;  Beccari  knew  a 
tiger-hunter  who  had  by  himself  brought  down  fourteen  head.  But  in  the 
cultivated  regions  of  Java  and  Luzon  there  are  agricultural  tribes  who  know 
almost  nothing  of  the  chase.  The  Malays  are  masters  in  the  art  of  setting 
traps.  Six  several  kinds  of  Dyak  traps  have  been  described  by  Skertchly  as 
bridges  or  platforms,  arches,  gangways.  Many  traps  have  two  falls,  which  drop 
simultaneously,  so  that  the  tiger  can  neither  get  out  nor  reach  the  bait.  Others 
are  of  the  nature  of  walled  pits,  widening  to  the  bottom.  For  the  capture  of  the 
savage  Carabao  buffalo,  the  Ilongotes  bend  a  stout  branch,  and  by  means  of 
rattan  twigs  form  it  into  a  lasso  trap.  Even  the  poor  Negritos  of  East  Luzon 
own  sporting  dogs.     Birds  are  caught  with  nets  and  limed  twigs  ;  and  among  the 


432 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Maanjans  of  Borneo,  during  the  rainy  season,  almost  the  whole  time  of  a  man  is 
taken  up  in  catching  a  small  but  savoury  parrot,  Palceornis  longicauda,  in  arranging 
the  decoy  bird,  weaving  cages,  and  preparing  the  bird-lime.  The  Bugises  pursue 
the  stag  on  horseback  in  thoroughly  sportsmanlike  style. 

Fishing  is  carried  on  with  hooks,  creels,  spears,  nets — -though  these  are  avoided 

in  the  neighbourhood  of  coral  reefs — and 
also  with  stupefying  drugs.  Dried,  smoked 
or  salted  fish,  form  a  great  article  of  trade, 
especially  in  the  Philippines ;  and  fishing- 
grounds  are  often  let  by  the  chiefs  at  a 
high  rent.  Deep-sea  fishing  is  carried 
on  by  the  Malays  of  the  coast ;  who  also 
devote  themselves  to  turtle-catching  and 
the  gathering  of  edible  birds'  nests  and 
trepang.  On  the  Andamans,  where  only 
Cyrena  is  now  eaten,  the  shell -heaps  or 
"  kitchen -middens"  contain  Area  and 
oyster-shells. 

Vegetable  food  preponderates — rice 
in  the  west,  sago  elsewhere.  Fish  comes 
next ;  meat  is  by  many  persons  eaten 
only  on  festive  occasions.  Owing  to  their 
preference  of  a  shore  life,  sea  products, 
even  down  to  star -fish,  are  a  favourite 
Beside  the  Mussulman  laws  as  to  feeding,  there  are  ancient  indigenous 


Dish-cover  of  armadillo  scales  from  Sumatra- 
tenth  real  size.      (Stockholm  Museum. ) 


probably,    as    among    Australians    and 


food. 

rules,    not     accurately    known,    which 

Polynesians,   are   connected 

with      tribal      organisation. 

Thus     the     Mandangos     of 

Borneo  will    not   eat  game. 

The  Tagals  are  said  to  have 

learnt  from  the  Chinese  to 

eat  eggs  that  have  been  sat 

upon,  with  the  chick  in  them, 

as  tit-bits. 

Betel  chewing  is  found 
all  over  this  region.  In  well- 
to-do  houses  it  is  reckoned 
as  a  courtesy  to  set  before 
the  visitor  the  elegant  lane- 

jang  or    case   for    the    imple-  Dish-cover  from  South-east  Borneo  (Stockholm  Museum. ) 

ments  required  for  this  pur- 
pose. It  may  be  unknown  in  some  out-of-the-way  parts,  but  it  is  far  more 
general  than  tobacco^  smoking,  which  is  forbidden  to  the  Bajus,  and  is  not 
practised  in  the  island  of  Ceram.  The  Tagals,  however,  and  nearly  all 
Mussulman  Malays,  are  passionately  fond  of  tobacco.  "  Hubble-bubbles  "  are 
made  in  Borneo  with  a  small  piece  of  hard  ironwood,  the  water  to  cool  the  smoke 
being  placed  in   a   bamboo.      In   Luzon,  the  tobacco-pipes   are  made  after  the 


DRESS,    WEAPONS,  AND   OTHER  PROPERTY  OF  THE  MALAYS        433 


Chinese  pattern,  to  hold  a  plug  of  tobacco  not  larger  than  a  bean.  In  the  interior 
of  Borneo,  of  the  outer  Moluccas,  and  of  Timor,  the  tobacco  plant  is  cultivated 
without  European  intervention  such  as  has  made  Luzon,  Java,  and  Sumatra  into 
headquarters  of  tobacco  growing  ;  and  everywhere  tobacco  is  a  coveted  article  of 
commerce.  The  Dyaks  fill  great  cornets  of  green  plantain-leaf  with  fine-cut 
tobacco  ;  and  it  is,  as  a  rule,  the  business  of  the  women  to  smoke  these  cigars. 
When  the  laborious  task  is  accomplished,  the  remainder  is  moistened  with  saliva 
and  made  into  balls  of  the  size  of  a  pigeon's  egg.  Opium  smoking  has  been  so 
widely  disseminated  by  the  Chinese,  that  in  1893  the  Dutch  colonial  government 


(i)  Bamboo  betel  and  tobacco  boxes  from  West  Sumatra — one-third  real  size.     (Munich  Museum.) 
(a)  Igorrote  spindle — one-third  real  size.     (From  Dr.  Meyer's  Collection.) 

drew  18,500,000  guilders  for  the  sale  and  farming  of  the  drug,  more  than  90  per 
cent  of  which  came  from  Java  and  Madura.  Even  among  the  Battaks,  opium 
smoking  is  beginning  to  produce  an  enervating  effect.  On  the  other,  betel  chewing 
is  on  the  increase  among  the  Chinese. 

Spirituous  drinks  existed  originally  only  in  limited  measure.  Palm  wine  was 
indeed  largely  in  use,  and  slightly  alcoholic  drinks  from  rice  or  sugar-cane  ;  but 
over  large  districts,  as  in  Borneo  or  Sumatra,  one  seldom  sees  the  natives  drink 
anything  but  coco-nut  milk  or  water.  These  races  do  not  make  much  use  of 
coffee,  but  prefer  an  infusion  of  coffee  leaves.  The  Chinwans  of  Formosa  brew  a 
fermented  drink  from  rice  or  millet ;  the  yeast  being  replaced  by  rice  meal  which 
has  been  chewed  by  an  old  woman. 

The  Malay  races  are  acquainted  with  the  use  and  preparation  of  iron,  though 

2  F 


434 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Tobacco  pipes  used  by  the  Igorrotes  and  Guinans  of  Luzon- 
size.     (Dr.  Meyer's  Collection. ) 


-two-thirds  real 


cast. 


at  the  present  day  much  foreign  iron  is  worked  in  their  countries,  and  the  iron 
spear,  as  among  the  exile  tribes  of  Luzon,  is  a  weapon  of  luxury.  In  the  Dyak 
country,  famous  for  its  weapons,  Bock  could  nowhere  see  a  mine  or  a  smelting 

furnace,^  nor  could  he 
suggest  whence  the 
raw  material  for  the 
weapons  was  actually 
brought.  In  Sumatra 
deserted  ironworks 
are  known,  though 
to-day  the  Battaks 
work  none  but  foreign 
iron.  In  Menang- 
kabau,  on  the  other 
hand,  iron  is  smelted 
in  furnaces  two  yards 
high  and  three  wide; 
there  gun-barrels  are 
welded  and  cannon 
Iron  and  copper  ores  are  worked  by  the  application  of  iire.  In  Ban- 
jermassing  and  Palembang,  there  is  a  large  and  flourishing  manufacture  of  arms, 
the  iron  for  which 
is  fetched  by  prefer- 
ence from  Celebes  and 
Timor.  This  rivals  in 
its  damascened  blades 
the  most  renowned 
workshops  of  the 
East.  For  damascen- 
ing, a  special  quality 
of  iron  is  imported  into 
Borneo,  for  example, 
from  Celebes,  and  the 
processes  of  welding 
it  with  common  iron 
and  of  etching  are 
executed  with  the 
greatest  care.  The 
Malays  of  Sarawak, 
in  Borneo,  also  are 
clever  workers  in  iron, 
and  no  less  those  of 
the  south-east  coast,  where  Nagara  is  the  seat  of  great  arsenals.  In  Brunei  and 
Sarawak,  brass  and  gold  are  likewise  wrought.  The  Battaks  are  cleverer  at 
copper  than  at  iron  work,  in  which  even  the  savage  Dyaks  surpass  them.  The 
Igorrotes  formerly  carried  on  copper  mining  actively,  the  mining  claims  being 
strictly  delimited.     The  inhabitants  of  Banca  do  not  understand  how  to  prepare 

^  [Schwaan,  however,  appears  to  have  seen  the  process.] 


Carved  wooden  sirih  box  from  Deli,  East  Sumatra- 
(From  a  drawing. ) 


-one-fourth  real  size. 


l>Ji£SS,   WEAPONS,   AND   OTHER  PROPERTY  OF   THE  MALAYS        435 


iron,  while  their  next  neighbours  are  familiar  with  the  process.  The  manipu- 
lation of  the  bellows,  made  of  bamboo  tubes  on  the  system  of  the  double 
pump,  is  the  same  as  in  India  and  Africa  ;  but,  besides  this,  Dr.  Hans  Meyer 
saw  in  an  Igorrote  smithy  a  bellows  consisting  of  two  hollowed  tree -stems, 
with  pipes  opening  on  the  ground.  For  instruments  Martens  found  in  a 
Malay  smithy  in  Borneo,  hammer,  chisel,  gouge,  and  axe,  but  not  pincers. 
For  hammers  and  axes  the  iron  is  fixed  in  the  wooden  handle  with  nothing  but 
split  rattan  ;  and  for  the  handle  a  branching  piece  is  selected,  the  iron  being  fixed 
in  the  main  branch  cut  off  short,  while  the  some- 
what weaker  side-bough  serves  as  handle.  Gold 
was  obtained  plentifully  in  the  archipelago  in  pre- 


(i)  Malay  loom  (from  a  photograph)  ;   (2)  Sack  carried  by  the  Igorrotes  of  Luzon— one-eighth  real  size. 

(Dr.  Meyer's  Collection.) 

European  times.  The  Malays  of  the  western  islands  like  to  use  gold  in  the  most 
various  ornaments  ;  even  among  the  Battaks  clever  gold  and  silver  smiths  make 
filigree.  Beside  damascening  they  practise  the  overlaying  of  the  steel,  when  hot, 
with  gold,  which  is  then  impressed.  In  Amboyna  and  Buru,  the  words  for  gold 
and  silver  are  Javanese ;  so  that  these  metals  would  appear  to  have  been  brought 
hither  in  later  times  from  the  west. 

Spinning  and  weaving  are  very  common.  Distaff  and  spindle  resemble  their 
European  kindred.  Even  the  Dyaks  make  excellent  cloth  from  cotton  on  the 
simple  upright  loom,  which,  put  together  from  a  few  sticks,  leans  at  an  angle 
against  the  wall  of  the  house.  The  Battaks  even  know  how  to  weave  in  gold 
threads.  But  the  work  demands  much  time.  Wallace  estimates  the  progress 
made  in  weaving  a  narrow  sarong  by  a  countrywoman  in  South  Celebes  at  one 
inch  per  diem.  In  Surabaya  and  Macassar  there  is  a  great  textile  industry  which 
is  connected  with  artistic  dyeing.  The  patterns  are  left  colourless  and  drawn  upon 
with  liquid  wax  {batik  industry) ;  or  the  cloths  have  pieces  of  banana-leaf  sewn 
upon  them,  and  are  artfully  folded,  the  whole  being  dipped  in  various  dyes  ;  so 


436  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


that  astonishing  designs  result.  Java  furnishes  the  black  sarongs  which  the 
genuine  Malay  loves  ;  Macassar,  coloured  cloth  ;  Padang,  the  skndjangs  or  shawls 
with  their  charming  patterns,  often  stitched  with  gold  and  silver  threads,  which  the 
women  use  as  head-coverings.  Plaited  baskets,  pouches,  and  hats  from  the  fibre 
of  pandanus  or  certain  palms  reach  even  the  markets  of  Europe.  The  "  manilla- 
hemp  "  or  abaca  {Musa  textilis),  was  cultivated  in  Luzon  before  Europeans  came. 
Bark  stuffs,  the  use  of  which  has  much  decreased  in  the  last  century,  are  prepared 
especially  by  tribes  in  Sumatra  and  Borneo  ;  while  the  stuffs  of  Celebes  attain  the 
perfection  of  the  Polynesian  tapa,  as  thin  as  paper.  The  Malayan  tapa  is  thick, 
more  like  leather  or  tinder. 

All  Malays  make  pottery,  but  without  special  aptitude.  Some  make  the 
vessels  of  clay,  hollowed  out  and  worked  with  a  piece  of  metal.  As  a  rule  they 
are  insufficiently  burnt,  and  the  things  remain  soft.  Yet  in  some  places  there  are 
great  tileries  and  potteries.  Among  the  Igorrotes,  according  to  Hans  Meyer, 
pottery  seems  to  be  the  only  handicraft,  besides  smith's  work,  that  is  carried  on  in 
a  business-like  way.  The  procelain  cups  and  vases  of  China  and  Japan  are  highly 
valued.  Vessels  of  bamboo  stand  to  earthenware  pots  in  the  position  of  less 
perishable  domestic  utensils,  and  they  do  quite  well  to  boil  rice  in.  The  Igorrotes 
have  remarkable  wooden  platters  with  a  large  cavity  for  the  food  and  a  smaller 
for  the  salt.      Tabelo  has  a  speciality  of  making  coco-nut  oil. 

There  are  real  industrial  centres,  where  one  industry  has  begotten  another. 
Thus  Nagara,  on  the  south-east  coast  of  Borneo,  has  a  reputation  for  its  manufac- 
ture of  weapons,  and  at  the  same  time  for  its  pottery,  its  shipbuilding,  and  its 
mat-weaving.  Ilocos  is  distinguished  for  its  cloth,  which  provides  northern  Luzon 
with  its  "  Ilocos  mantles."  But  all  tribes  are  not  equally  active  in  trade ;  among 
the  Battaks  and  other  Sumatrans  it  is  left  to  the  women  ;  while  the  Lubus  are 
quite  passive. 

The  great  development  of  seafaring  limits  the  area  of  internal  trade.  Since 
there  are  few  navigable  rivers,  and  beasts  of  burden  are  little  used,  everything  is 
carried,  almost  exclusively  by  women,  in  open  carrying-frames  of  rattan,  in  water- 
tight baskets,  or  in  sack-like  wallets  supported  by  a  band  round  the  forehead ; 
whether  homeward  from  the  fields  or  to  market.  The  trade  is  principally  barter. 
Even  in  the  remote  parts  of  Central  Borneo,  and  on  the  Tobah  Plateau,  the  larger 
villages  have  their  weekly  markets  in  the  open  air — a  combination  of  business 
and  cock-fighting.  They  begin  early,  and  are  over  long  before  noon.  In  many 
districts  the  market-days  succeed  each  other  in  a  regular  order  from  place  to  place. 
These  countries,  at  any  rate  in  so  far  as  they  have  felt  Indian  influence,  must  at 
some  time  have  had  better  roads  than  the  "  mouse-tracks  "  of  to-day  ;  otherwise 
the  grand  buildings  of  Java  and  Sumatra  would  be  inconceivable. 

With  Dutch  influence,  Dutch  money  is  mostly  current  in  Malay  regions ;  but 
the  Battaks  of  the  highlands  recognise  only  the  genuine  Spanish  peso ;  on  the 
frontier,  however,  we  find  also  the  Mexican.  In  Lombok,  only  Chinese  coppers 
are  taken  in  payment.  Besides  these,  gold  coins  are  in  demand  for  purposes  of 
ornament ;  English  sovereigns  from  the  Australian  mint  fetch  flfteen  guilders  in 
Borneo.  The  cleverness  of  the  Malays  in  counterfeit  coining  points  perhaps 
to  Chinese  training. 


THE  MALAY  FAMILY,    COMMUNITY,   STATE  A37 


§   19.  THE    MALAY    FAMILY,    COMMUNITY,   STATE 

Courtship  and  wedding — Various  kinds  of  bride-purchase — Wedding  ceremonies — Position  of  the  wife — The 
family  and  the  tribe — Exogamy  and  polygamy — Forms  of  kinship — Birth  and  bringing-up — Political  import- 
ance of  the  tribe — Sukus  and  similar  institutions — The  State  :  prevalence  of  small  independent  communities ; 
despotism  or  anarchy? — Examples  of  the  sovereign's  position  in  Acheen  and  Sulu — Preponderance  of 
village  aristocracy — Chiefs  insignia — Political  conditions  in  Bali — Landownership — Slavery — Colonisation 
— International  relations — War  and  peace — Head- hunting  ;  its  psychological  and  historical  motives — 
Cannibalism — Legal  matters  ;  law  and  penalties  ;  ordeals  ;  secret  societies  ;  the  Pamali,  Fadi,  or  Fosso — 
Death  and  burial — Funeral  ceremonies. 

Among  the  Malay  tribes  marriage  is  based  almost  entirely  on  purchase,  and 
the  wife  is  often  called  "  the  bought  one."  Where  the  number  of  women  admits 
of  it,  polygamy  is  customary,  if  only  as  being  encouraged  by  Islam,  which  is  fast 
gaining  ground.  Yet  among  all  the  simpler  tribes  people  are  content  with  one 
wife,  and  here  and  there  the  polygamist  allows  himself  one  wife  in  his  own  village 
and  others  abroad.  Exogamy  and  inheritance  by  the  mother  are  represented,  but 
admit  of  exceptions, — cases  in  which  ignorance  or  disregard  of  marriage  are  due 
to  insufficient  observation. 

In  Luzon,  parts  of  Borneo,  and  Sumatra  the  purchase  of  a  bride  is  a  simple 
affair;  the  Ilongote  youth  has  to  serve  in  the  house  of  the  bride  and  to 
provide  pigs  and  fowls  for  the  wedding  feast.  A  Lubu  used  to  give  the  bride's 
father  a  blow-gun  with  quiver  and  arrows,  the  principal  weapons  of  that  people, 
and  in  addition  offered  a  dog  or,  if  he  wished  to  do  it  in  style,  a  pig  for  the 
banquet.  Now  instead  of  this  it  is  a  fowl,  a  measure  of  rice,  and  a  small  sum  in 
money ;  besides  this  the  bridegroom  has  to  assist  his  father-in-law  for  a  certain 
period  in  his  work.  It  is  otherwise  in  places  where  distinction  of  ranks  and 
capital  have  created  wider  demands.  The  price  paid  among  people  of  the 
middle  class  in  Halmahera  amounts  to  eighty  Dutch  guilders,  among  rich 
people  in  Timorlaut  even  to  one  thousand.  Besides  this,  weapons  and  dishes,  in 
other  places  cattle,  in  Sulu  even  boats,  cannons,  and  slaves  are  presented.  In 
order  that  the  wife  may  retain  a  certain  amount  of  dependence,  it  is  occasionally 
thought  polite  to  leave  a  small  part  of  the  sum  unpaid,  but  more  often  the  wife 
defrays  the  cost  of  the  marriage  and  the  husband  gives  a  present,  in  which  case 
both  sides  are  equal ;  or  else  the  man  gives  nothing  at  all,  and  thereby  passes  into 
a  state  of  dependence  on  the  wife's  family— in  the  island  of  Nias  even  into  a 
kind  of  debt-slavery.  All  these  varieties  of  marriage  are  found  in  Menangkabau  ; 
the  Battaks  have  the  first  and  last  form,  but  among  the  Lampongs  of  Sumatra 
the  last  is  regarded  as  disgraceful.  Divorce  shows  corresponding  differences  ;  if 
much  has  been  paid  for  the  bride  the  wife  has  to  buy  back  the  children  ;  but  a 
fixed  sum  of  twenty-five  to  one  hundred  guilders  is  also  agreed  upon  in  presence 
of  witnesses  before  the  marriage,  and  this,  in  the  event  of  divorce,  has  to  be  paid 
by  the  guilty  party.     The  most  decisive  ground  for  separation  is  sterility. 

The  great  importance  attached  to  marriage  by  purchase  is,  among  the  more 
progressive  and  richer  tribes,  the  cause  of  such  conspicuous  incongruities  that  so 
long  as  one  hundred  years  ago  it  was  indicated  as  the  most  fertile  source  oi 
litigation.  In  Menangkabau  it  is  possible  to  exchange  a  daughter-in-law  tor  a 
daughter.     By  paying  the  difference  she  can  be  given  in   marriage  by  those  to 


438  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

whom  she  has  been  tjransferred  as  though  she  had  been  their  own  daughter.  If 
the  wife  goes  to  her  husband  he  is  liable  to  answer  for  her  in  every  respect,  while 
she  loses  the  right  of  inheritance  in  her  own  family ;  if,  as  is  the  more  usual  case, 
the  man  goes  to  the  wife,  her  family  has  to  answer  for  her.  The  father  is  indeed 
bound  to  provide  for  his  children  under  age ;  but  since  they  do  not  inherit  from 
him,  they  are  not  responsible  for  his  debts,  and  without  the  consent  of  his  future 
heirs  he  can  make  them  no  presents  except  clothing.  If  the  sum  which  is 
demanded  for  the  bride  appears  to  the  bridegroom's  friends  exorbitant,  while 
at  the  same  time  there  is  mutual  inclination,  they  carry  the  bride  off.  The 
parents  go  out  with  arms  to  seek  her,  but  after  executing  a  mimic  fight,  they  come 
to  an  agreement  about  the  sum  to  be  paid  as  indemnity  or  jujur.  This  is 
subsequently  alleged  in  public  from  motives  of  ostentation  to  have  been  higher 
than  it  actually  was.  Many  customs  bear  the  stamp  of  the  notion  that  the  wife 
is  the  husband's  property ;  thus  the  Rejangs,  when  escorting  the  bride  from  the 
paternal  house,  tread  on  her  big  toe. 

Corruptions  of  marriage  such  as  are  certain  to  come  about  under  these  con- 
ditions are  met  with  especially  among  some  Dyaks  of  Borneo.-  ^  The  immorality 
of  the  priestesses  in  no  way  prejudices  their  chances  of  marriage ;  among  the 
Alfurs  of  the  coast  of  Ceram  recognised  prostitution  exists,  and  the  young  girls, 
called  dojaro,  have  a  captain  over  them.  There  is  an  important  traffic  in  the 
much  sought-after  girls  of  Nias  from  Padang  to  Chinese  places  and  to  Acheen. 
The  ease  with  which  Malay  women  form  transitory  alliances  with  foreigners  has 
borne  its  part  in  their  rapid  fusion  with  strangers.  Nearly  all  the  so-called 
Chinese  women  in  Banca  are  half  breeds  from  Malayan  mothers. 

Exogamic  marriage  is  very  general.  In  the  hill  country  of  Padang  no  man 
marries  in  his  own  suku,  or  among  the  Battaks  in  his  own  marga.  Similarly 
in  Nias,  Ceram,  Buru,  and  Timor,  the  intending  bridegroom  is  bidden  to  go 
outside  his  tribe.  Inheritance  through  the  mother  is  a  frequent  concomitant. 
Among  the  Padang  Malays  the  child  always  belongs  to  its  mother's  suku,  and 
all  blood-relationship  is  reckoned  through  the  wife  as  the  real  transmitter  of  the 
family ;  the  husband  being  only  a  stranger.  For  this  reason  his  heirs  are  not  his 
own  children  but  the  children  of  his  sister,  his  brothers,  and  other  uterine-relations  ; 
children  are  the  natural  heirs  of  their  mother  only.  Traces  of  this  system  are  to 
be  found  among  the  Rejangs  and  Battaks  of  Sumatra.  It  is,  however,  to  be 
observed  that  this  everywhere  applies  to  regular  marriage  only  ;  in  such  connec- 
tions as  partake  of  the  nature  of  concubinage  the  principle  of  partus  sequitur 
ventrem,  as  might  be  expected,  holds  good.  We  may  assume  that  wherever 
exogamy  is  now  found  co-existing  with  inheritance  through  the  father  (as  among 
Rejangs  and  Battaks,  the  people  of  Nias  and  Timor,  or  the  Alfurs  of  Ceram 
and  Buru)  this  was  formerly  through  the  mother ;  and  that  the  other  system  has 
grown  up  out  of  dislike  to  the  inconveniences  arising  from  the  insecure  and 
dependent  position  of  the  husband  in  the  wife's  family.  With  inheritance 
through  the  father  is  connected  the  custom  of  marrying  a  brother's  widow. 
For  if  the  wife  has  become  incorporated  in  her  husband's  family,  it  is  they  who 
have  to  look  after  her  when  she  is  a  widow.  Hence  in  Rejang  there  was  a 
chief  with  seven  wives,  five  of  whom  were  the  widows  of  his  deceased  brothers. 
The  order  of  succession  to  the  father  is,  first  the  children — of  whom  in  Halmahera 
the  eldest  takes  the  household  furniture,  the  younger  the  landed  property — then 


THE  MALAY  FAMILY,    COMMUNITY,   STATE  439 


brothers,  sisters,  nephews,  and  nieces.  In  this  system  the  wife  comes  off  worst. 
Having  been  purchased,  she  cannot  inherit  from  her  husband  ;  while,  by  leaving 
her  paternal  home,  she  has  given  up  all  claims  upon  it,  and  cannot  inherit  these 
either.  Hence  exogamy  and  patriarchate  as  a  rule  imply  the  exclusive  succession 
of  the  male  relations  by  blood. 

Courtship  is  often  quite  free,  prompted  by  purely  human  sentiment,  and 
without  words  ;  though  business  considerations  sometimes  claim  a  place.  In 
Sulu  the  bride  is  often  offered  for  sale.  In  Halmahera  the  lads  used  to  intimate 
their  feelings  to  the  girls  at  the  festival  dances,  by  appropriating  some  of  the 
flowers  or  feathers  which  decked  their  heads.  The  right  of  the  stronger  pre- 
vailed here,  and  no  young  man  attended  the  feast  without  sword  and  shield  ;  but 
here  too  the  age  is  grown  more  peaceable.  A  few  nights  afterwards  the  fortunate 
wooer  will  go  with  his  solepa,  or  one-stringed  guitar,  to  the  house  where  the 
maiden  of  his  choice  is  sleeping,  and  standing  outside  by  the  wall,  will  perform 
his  serenade.  At  first  the  tune  expresses  a  modest  entreaty ;  then,  if  affection 
springs  up,  the  melody  changes,  and  he  prays  the  maiden  to  twist  him  an 
arm-ring  of  bark.  -On  her  side,  she  requests  him  to  cut  her  out  a  piece  of  paper 
wherewith  to  adorn  her  betel-box  ;  and  with  that  the  suit  is  formally  introduced. 
But  the  youth  may  neither  see  the  maiden  of  his  choice  nor  make  any  more 
advances  ;  the  penalty  for  so  doing  would  be  a  heavy  fine,  or  obhgation  to  marry  at 
once  under  conditions  imposed  by  her  relations.  If  the  courtship  is  to  be  published, 
the  girl  is  awakened  some  evening  by  a  friend  of  her  suitor's,  who  either  pulls 
her  hair  or  introduces  his  finger-nail  under  hers.  This  happens  again  the  next 
evening,  but  this  time  the  suitor  has  come  too.  He  sits  modestly  on  the  floor 
behind  the  door  of  her  bedroom  ;  she  conceals  herself  in  token  that  his  request 
is  granted.  The  rest  light  torches  and  go  about  as  though  searching  for  thieves. 
When  the  suitor  is  discovered,  they  invite  him  to  chew  betel  with  them.  If  he 
acts  upon  their  invitation,  the  maiden  is  lost  to  him  ;  so  he  remains  sitting  with 
bowed  head.  This  process  is  repeated  on  the  two  following  evenings  ;  not  till 
the  fourth  does  the  wedding  festivity  begin  with  the  offer  of  betel,  which  again 
is  surrounded  with  a  mass  of  ceremonies.  In  Timorlaut  the  whole  courtship  has 
shrunk  into  a  demand  for  betel,  and  the  presentation  of  that  highly-esteemed 
luxury.  If  the  maiden  grant  the  youth's  request  for  sirih,  his  suit  is  heard,  and 
the  two  live  in  a  state  of  probationary  association  till  the  dowry  is  settled. 

Wedding  festivities  vie  in  pomp  and  duration  with  those  which  accompany 
funerals.  The  feast  is  held  in  the  bride's  house ;  the  best  pig  is  sacrificed  where 
the  family  is  heathen,  and  the  guests  invoke  celestial  protection  to  chase  ^  away 
evil  spirits.  At  Rau  on  the  west  coast  of  Sumatra,  where  the  wedding  is  got 
through  in  one  day,  the  bridegroom,  before  asking  for  the  bride's  hand,  makes  three 
ceremonial  evening  calls  in  company  with  his  friend,  the  lady  receiving  him  with 
hers.  The  guests  present  jzWA  and  are  entertained,  while  bridegroom  and  bride 
converse  in  poetry  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  tambourine.  The  mother-in-law 
does  not  appear  till  the  third  occasion,  and  then  bride  and  bridegroom  eat 
off  the  same  plate,  the  lady  putting  the  food  to  the  gentleman's  mouth.  Then, 
and  not  till  then,  is  the  object  of  the  visit  declared  ;  and  if  this  is  done  in  m- 
sufficiently  clear  terms,  it  means  that  the  gentleman  wishes  to  withdraw  his  suit. 
Among  the  Maanjans  of  Borneo,  people  go  on  the  wedding  day,  often  with 
presents,  to  the  bride's  house,  to  ask  if  the  bridegroom   may  draw  near.     Then 


440  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

he  advances  with  his  relations,  a  copper  dish  being  borne  before  them.  This  is 
placed  upon  another,  whereon  lies  an  egg  which  is  broken  and  mingled  with  the 
blood  of  a  hen  or  pig  killed  over  the  dish.  After  the  banquet  the  happy  pair 
are  smeared  with  the  mixture.  This  smearing,  which  is  the  operative  part  of  the 
ceremony,  is  performed  with  a  piece  of  silver  or  iron.  It  begins  at  the  soles  of 
the  feet,  proceeding  in  order  to  the  knees,  the  pit  of  the  stomach,  the  hands, 
elbows,  shoulders,  breast,  forehead,  and  spine,  a  special  form  of  words  being  used 
to  avert  bad  luck  or  bring  good.  The  young  pair  remain  nine  days  in  the 
bride's  house,  five  with  the  parents  of  the  bridegroom  ;  then  he  either  begins  to 
build  a  new  house,  or  goes  to  one  belonging  to  his  father  or  mother.  Among 
the  Trings  the  young  man,  after  his  present  has  been  accepted,  works  for  some 
time  for  the  father  of  his  intended,  and  then  gives  her  two  slaves.  A  third 
present  of  rice,  fowls,  and  pigs,  is  made  to  the  mother-in-law  immediately  before 
marriage.  Here  too  the  couple  sit  near  the  copper  dish  and  are  smeared  with 
the  blood  of  a  victim  ;  on  the  second  day  they  bathe  together  in  public,  and  on 
the  fourth  they  go,  holding  a  piece  of  rattan  as  a  symbol  of  life,  in  search  of  an 
edible  fruit,  from  which,  when  it  is  dressed,  they  ascertain  their- destiny. 

Here  and  there  the  bride  likes  to  hide  herself  to  make  a  show  of  aversion  to 
wedlock,  or  to  seeing  the  bridegroom  for  the  first  night  after  marriage,  or  to 
being  caught  asleep,  together  with  her  kinsfolk,  by  the  bridegroom  on  the 
wedding-day.  Among  the  Alfurs  of  Halmahera  the  young  man  spends  four 
nights  with  his  bride  without  speaking  of  the  marriage.  When  the  dowry  is 
arranged  he  sleeps  in  her  room,  but  is  not  allowed  a  sight  of  her  before  the  dawn. 
During  this  period  presents  and  return  presents  and  porcelain  dishes  pass  to  and 
fro,  brought  by  deputations  from  the  kinsfolk  and  friends,  and  on  every  occasion 
there  is  great  festivity.  The  bridegroom  is  entitled  to  seize  the  bride,  but  he 
avoids  doing  so,  as  though  the  custom  had  fallen  into  disrepute.  The  concluding 
ceremony  of  betrothal  consists  in  the  preparation  of  a  meal  by  the  bride  with  a 
ceremonial  form  of  words.  Where  the  custom  has  been  brought  into  harmony 
with  Islam  little  is  expected,  at  most  a  visit  to  the  mosque  on  the  wedding-day 
and  a  small  tribute  for  the  priest,  all  subsequent  marriages  being  simply  purchase. 
In  Timorlaut,  a  boy  and  a  girl,  as  symbols  of  the  blessings  of  offspring,  are 
placed  between  the  couple  at  the  wedding  feast,  while  among  the  Tinguians  of 
Luzon  a  boy  sleeps  the  first  night  between  the  newly  married  pair. 

The  position  of  women  is  in  general  by  no  rneans  low  ;  among  Mussulmans 
indeed  she  is  less  well  off  than  among  the  heathens.  Writing  of  Timorlaut, 
Riedl  says,  "  The  husband  never  beats  the  wife  ;  it  is  quite  the  other  way." 
There  are  variations  also  in  this,  but  in  all  respects  the  woman  is  highly  valued  ; 
in  the  blood-tariffs  many  a  woman  is  valued  higher  than  a  man,  the  proportion 
among  the  Rejangs  of  Sumatra  being  as  150  to  80  ;  only  the  highest  chiefs  are 
superior  to  their  wives.  The  purchase  money  of  a  bride  is  accordingly  no  cheap 
business  ;  if  marriage  was  a  mere  matter  of  purchase,  the  wife  would  become  the 
husband's  property,  and  after  his  death  she  and  her  children  would  become  the 
property  of  his  heirs.  The  social  position  of  the  wife  is  raised  where  both  sides 
bear  the  cost  of  the  wedding,  and  it  is  best  of  all  where  the  marriage  is  concluded 
on  the  basis  of  ambil  anak.  Here  indeed  the  husband  pays  nothing,  but  is  liable 
to  render  service  and  has  no  right  to  the  children.  This  method  was  chiefly  in  use 
when  only  one  daughter  remained  of  a  family  and  the  family  had  to  be  preserved 


THE  MALAY  FAMILY,    COMMUNITY,   STATE  441 


through  her  marriage,  but  it  gave  rise  to  so  much  litigation  that  it  was  forbidden 
among  the  Rejangs.  Connected  with  the  varying  ratio  that  prevails  between 
marriage  by  purchase  and  social  position  is  the  higher  position  of  the  woman 
which  we  find  among  the  Maanjans  of  Borneo,  among  whom  no  betrothal  is 
concluded  before  the  youth  and  the  maiden  are  agreed.  The  young  man, 
however,  does  not  pay  any  dowry,  his  expenses  consisting  of  a  few  guilders  paid  to 
the  witnesses,  of  which  the  bride  contributes  half. 

Female  sovereigns  occur  among  the  Dyaks,  but  only  in  isolated  cases.  Very 
little  weight  can  be  attached  to  the  appearance  of  women  in  popular  legends  as 
founders  of  dynasties,  it  is  merely  the  cosmogonic  idea  of  the  earth  as  the  original 
'  mother.  Priestesses  in  the  same  way  are  the  mainstay  of  the  most  immoral 
customs  ;  we  cannot  look  for  any  enhancement  of  the  dignity  of  the  female  sex 
in  their  position.  But  we  may  account  among  the  signs  of  woman's  higher 
position  the  heavy  penalties  with  which  adultery  was  visited  before  the  time  of 
the  disintegrating  influence  of  Islam  and  Europe.  Among  the  Acheenese  the 
wife's  relations  make  a  circle  around  the  guilty  man  and  give  him  a  weapon 
wherewith  he  may  make  his  way  out ;  if  he  succeeds  in  doing  so  he  is  all  right, 
if  not  he  is  hewn  in  pieces  and  buried  on  the  spot.  By  the  laws  of  the  Rejangs 
heavy  fines  were  inflicted  for  concubinage,  illegitimate  births,  and  even  births 
following  too  soon  after  the  conclusion  of  the  marriage  ;  a  similar  disposition  pre- 
vailed in  Celebes.  Foreign  influence  has  caused  adultery  to  be  lightly  regarded 
among  the  Tagals  of  Luzon,  but  the  Igorrotes  who  remained  untouched  by  it 
severely  punished  indiscretion  on  the  part  of  girls,  and  beheaded  adulteresses, 
though  now,  according  to  Hans  Meyer,  they  take  a  more  lenient  view  of  the 
offence.  In  Sulu  the  Spaniards  saw  adulteresses  put  in  irons  for  life.  The  death 
of  the  husband  does  not  merely  set  the  wife  free  ;  in  Sahu  she  can  even  leave  her 
children  to  the  husband's  brother  and  re-enter  her  own  family. 

As  regards  the  division  of  labour  between  the  sexes,  the  wife  helps  her  husband 
in  field-work  while  the  house-work  falls  to  her  sole  share  ;  in  the  former,  however, 
the  man  takes  the  hardest  part,  while  reaping  is  more  the  wife's  business.  The 
rule  is  observed  here  that  the  more  laborious  a  race  the  fairer  is  the  division 
of  labour. 

Before  the  birth  of  a  child  the  mother  has  to  observe  manifold  rules  involving 
the  interpretation  of  omens  and  the  choice  of  days.  Neither  she  nor  the  father 
may  look  at  a  mirror  nor  into  a  bamboo  tube,  as  otherwise  the  child  will  squint ; 
they  must  not  break  up  tobacco  or  sirih  in  the  betel  bag,  but  before  doing  so  take 
them  out.  Even  the  men  may  not  work  at  a  house,  nor  roof  it,  nor  drive  nails  in, 
nor  go  in  at  a  door,  nor  up  a  ladder,  otherwise  the  child  may  not  be  born.  Old 
women  assist  at  the  birth,  which  often  takes  place  in  a  hut  far  from  the  dwelling  ; 
then  begin  the  preparations  for  naming.  Among  the  Dyaks,  so  far  as  they  are 
still  head-hunters,  the  father  must  first  take  a  head  ;  among  the  Ilongotes  the 
name  is  not  given  till  the  fifth  day,  in  Sahu  hot  till  the  ninth  year.  Beast  names 
occur  recalling  those  of  the  tribes.  The  father  gives  the  name,  and  especially  in 
places  where  the  soul  of  an  ancestor  is  deemed  to  exist  in  the  child  ;  then  the 
father  also  assigns  this  ancestral  name  to  himself  At  the  birth  of  a  second  son 
he  takes  his  name  also,  so  that  the  more  sons  the  more  names.  Infanticide  is 
common,  and  is  specially  practised  in  regard  to  the  second  born  of  a  pair  of  twins. 

Entry  upon  adult  age  is  denoted  among  some  Dyaks  by  the  seclusion  in   a 


442  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

forest  house  of  those  who  have  attained  that  time  of  life,  also  by  circumcision  or  the 
adoption  of  the  bark  belt.  After  this  the  youth  has  his  place  in  the  bachelors' 
sleeping-house,  and  is  bound  to  take  a  head  as  soon  as  may  be.  Separate  sleeping- 
houses  for  girls  and  youths  are  very  common.  Other  signs  of  maturity  are 
tattooing  and  teeth-filing.  Boys  practise  themselves  with  bow  and  arrow,  and, 
among  the  head-hunters,  in  decapitating  straw  dummies.  Even  where  weapons  are 
no  longer  used  by  grown-up  people,  as  is  the  case  with  the  bow  in  Java,  they  remain  ' 
as  children's  playthings.  Among  the  tribes  that  have  grown  up  in  a  state  of  nature, 
as  is  well  known,  only  warlike  excellence  is  inculcated.  Girls  pass  the  period  of 
their  first  maturity  in  huts  apart  ;  in  Ceram,  in  cages.  Among  the  Alfurs  of  that 
island  they  are  then,  after  washing  and  adorning  themselves,  anointed  with  palm- 
oil,  and  made  to  bite  off  a  piece  of  banana  and  fish,  which  they  spit  out  again. 
Teeth-filing  and  tattooing  frequently  take  place  at  this  time ;  or,  if  neglected,  the 
omission  is  retrieved  at  the  first  pregnancy.  Girls  as  well  as  youths  are  distinguished 
from  the  married  people  by  a  ring  of  white  shell  on  the  upper  arm.  Among  the 
Western  Malays  the  girls  are  kept  more  strictly  than  in  the  East.  In  the  former 
region  they  are  accompanied  by  duennas,  while  in  the  latter  they  usually  go  about 
at  liberty,  especially  at  the  feasts,  with  their  general  dances.  Thus  among  the 
Alfurs  of  Halmahera  almost  every  engagement  may  be  traced  to  the  lengthy 
dances  at  funeral  feasts.  The  Battak  girl  will  bathe  tranquilly  and  composedly 
before  men,  who  cast  down  their  eyes  as  they  pass  ;  but  to  a  genuine  Mussulman 
Malay  this  would  be  the  height  of  disgrace. 

The  basis  of  the  state  is  the  family  tie,  any  developments  which  extend 
beyond  this  betray  their  unspontaneous  character  by  indications  of  foreign  origin, 
or  by  their  constant  tendency  to  break  up  again  into  the  old  patriarchal  elements. 
In  spite  of  the  depth  to  which  Indian  influences  have  penetrated,  strict  caste 
distinctions  do  not  exist.  In  Sumatra  the  old  Malay  state  is  built  up  from  the 
sukus,  that  is  the  families  and  septs  which  together  compose  a  tribe,  and  of  which 
the  heads  or  pangulus,  also  called  pangkarans,  rule  the  land.  As  many  sukus  as 
there  are  in  a  village,  so  many  pangulus  ;  and  the  whole  country  side  is  ruled  by 
the  pangulus  of  its  villages  in  meeting  assembled  ;  as  a  rule,  the  dignity  passes  to 
the  uterine  brother  or  the  sister's  son.  The  chief  function  of  these  headmen  is 
judicial.  Besides  marks  of  respect  and  obedience,  they  receive  a  tribute  of  rice 
and  presents  on  festive  occasions.  The  cost  of  their  wedding  and  funeral  is  borne 
by  their  subjects  ;  they  can  only  be  deposed  for  gross  violations  of  law  and 
tradition.  The  origin  of  the  sukus,  the  name  of  which — meaning  a  quarter — is 
hardly  suitable  to  their  great  number,  remains  obscure.  But  a  legend  relates  that 
the  people  of  Tanah-Datar  were  composed  of  two  tribes  which  divided  into  four 
branches.  Later,  when  the  population  increased,  many  sukus  were  distinguished 
by  separate  names  ;  now  there  are,  as  a  rule,  four  to  six  in  one  village. 

Next  above  the  suku,  as  a  larger  subdivision  of  the  people,  comes  the  lara,  the 
position  of  which  is  not  completely  explained  as  given  in  historic  legend.  Perhaps 
it  must  be  referred  to  mutual  exogamic  marriage  between  two  sukus.  Organisa- 
tion in  pairs  is  frequently  found  also  in  other  Malayan  districts.  Among  the 
Battaks,  where  the  tribes  which  have  distinctive  names  are  called  Margas,  the 
territorial  unit  corresponding  to  the  tribe  known  as  Kuria  was  originally  inhabited 
by  a  single  marga,  but  this  has  been  now  replaced  by  duality  ;  one  marga  is  that 
originally  in  possession,  the  other  is  the  guest,  and  the  two  stand  in  a  position  of 


THE  MALAY  FAMILY,    COMMUNITY,   STATE  443 

mutual  inter-marriage.  Eastward,  in  Buru  and  Ceram,  the  term  hena  denotes 
alike  tribe  and  district,  because  every  district  is  still  inhabited  by  one  particular 
tribe. 

Among  the  Alfurs  of  Halmahera,  Ternate,  and  elsewhere,  the  to/as,  within 
which  marriage  is  forbidden  to  the  fourth  generation,  correspond  clearly  to  the 
sukus  of  the  West  Malays.  If  this  system  appears  to  have  become  obliterated  in 
the  Philippines  and  Formosa,  still  the  dependence  of  plebeians  on  plutocrats,  the 
Abitags  and  Baknanges,  such  as  Hans  Meyer  describes  it  in  Benget,  recalls  the 
cases  in  which  a  marga  holds  the  position  of  guest.  Among  the  Lampongs  we 
may  recognise  similar  principles.  Here  we  meet  with  a  still  more  perfect  refine- 
ment of  the  tribe  and  village  constitution.  Every  district  or  marga  is  made 
up  of  several  villages, — seldom  more  than  ten, — is  governed  by  an  independent 
chief,  and  named  after  the  tribe.  Each  village  again  is  divided  into  a  number  of 
quarters,  with  a  head  man  in  command  of  each,  all  the  others  being  subordinate 
to  the  head  man  of  the  senior  quarter.  The  foundation  of  a  new  quarter  requires 
the  consent  of  all  the  chiefs,  and  until  this  is  given  quite  a  large  number  of  newly- 
founded  homesteads  remain  dependent  on  their  founders.  Accordingly,  here  as  well 
as  in  the  suku  constitution,  all  relations  of  dependency  are  regulated  according  to 
the  connection  of  pedigree,  for  which  reason  even  the  sovereign  may  only  address 
his  subjects  as  tribesmen  while  the  head  of  a  family  calls  his  children  and  cousins. 
This  coincidence  of  tribe  and  district  is  very  widely  found,  the  Island  of  Nias  is 
all  divided  into  fifteen  to  twenty-five  districts,  and  the  people  into  a  similar 
number  of  tribes. 

In  Malay  countries  we  find  originally  village  states  ;  thus  in  the  independent 
parts  of  Formosa  the  tribes  live  side  by  side  in  villages,  and  the  island  of  Coram, 
less  than  ten  miles  in  length,  is  broken  up  into  twelve  lordships.  Larger  king- 
doms have  arisen  in  Tagal  territory  only  where  Islam  has  got  a  footing,  as  in 
Mindanao,  Sulu,  and  the  shores  of  the  bay  of  Manilla.  Besides  these  there  were 
three  kingdoms,  vassal  to  the  sultan  of  Tondo,  and  over  these  again  strangers 
ruled — half-breeds  from  Malays  of  Borneo  by  Negrito  women.  Similarly,  even 
among  the  Malays  of  Sumatra  Javanese  have  taken  a  great  share  in  founding  more 
powerful  states  like  Palembang  upon  an  Indian  pattern.  For  this  reason  com- 
prehensive names  for  races  and  countries  are  often  lacking.  The  Formosans  have 
no  general  name  for  their  fellow-islanders,  a  token  of  their  feeble  political  develop- 
ment which  also  causes  frontiers  to  remain  indistinct.  In  Malay  annals  quarrels 
about  frontiers  play  an  important  part.  The  bond  of  union  is  always  association 
in  a  tribe;  the  Maanjans  formerly  were  under  Majapahit,  then  under  the 
Mussulman  kingdom  of  Martapura,  and  finally  under  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Dutch.  Thus  their  independence  was  lost,  and  with  it  more  than  once  the  local 
connection  of  the  tribes,  but  they  have  always  found  each  other  again.  In  the 
Philippines  a  chief  aim  of  Spanish  statecraft  was  to  break  up  the  old  tribal 
fellowships  and  the  village  states  or  barangays.  The  inhabitants  of  several 
harangays  were  compelled  to  leave  their  homes  and  settle  down  together  in  one 
place,  the  new  village  forming  a  single  commune  under  the  name  of  a  pueblo. 
But  in  the  pueblo  the  members  of  the  same  barangay  would  settle  down  together, 
and  so  it  broke  up  into  fractions  retaining  the  ancient  name.  Those  who  had 
been  dattus  were  made  alcaldes  and  collectors  of  the  poll-tax.  Villainage  and 
also  slavery    were    done   away    with,    and    the   chiefs    thereby    deprived   of   the 


444  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

substantial  basis  of  their  influence.  Christianity  also,  by  turning  ^^  pueblo  into 
a  parish,  contributed  its  share  to  the  weakening  of  the  old  organisation.  This, 
however,  is  so  deeply  rooted  in  tribal  sentiment  that  each  clan  lives  on  its  own 
barangay  and  treats  its  own  Cabeza  with  reverence,  and  it  was  not  until  natives 
began  to  be  ordained  in  large  numbers  that  inferiors  went  over  his  head ;  not, 
however,  without  some  loss  in  the  respect  paid  to  the  clergy.  The  villages  are 
often  called  by  the  name  of  the  oldest  inhabitant. 

The  scattered  nomad  tribes  are  yet  a  stage  lower  ;  they,  like  the  gipsies, 
recognise  only  an  elected  chief,  which  does  not  preclude  his  being  chosen  by 
preference  from  a  special  family.  The  Negrito  hordes  of  Luzon  often  consist 
of  only  twenty  to  thirty  souls  ;  they  are  historic  instances  of  tribes  formed  by 
the  breaking  up  of  larger  races. 

Even  in  the  bigger  states  the  sukus  and  their  pangulus  are  often  conspicuous 
as  the  elements  which  decide  the  nature  of  the  community.  In  the  genuine 
Malay  constitution  they  are  the  rulers,  while  the  rajah  or  sultan  is  only  their 
delegate.  Hence  in  most  cases  the  constitution  is  a  transitional  stage  from  the 
patriarchal  form  to  a  confederated  aristocracy  tempered  by  representative  elements. 
The  leader  of  the  tribe  is  the  protector  of  his  subjects,  has  to  redeem  them  if  they 
fall  into  slavery,  is  allowed  to  pledge  them,  draws  the  chief  of  his  revenue  from 
money  fines,  and  has  control  over  wood  and  meadow  land  if  there  is  no  arable. 
Even  where  the  sovereign  himself  has  the  reins  in  his  hands  it  is  this  rank  which 
supplies  the  official  posts  at  court  and  in  the  country.  Below  this  hereditary 
aristocracy,  which  is  also  an  aristocracy  of  property,  and  frequently  is  sub- 
divided into  a  higher  nobility  consisting  of  relations  of  a  former  sultan  and  a 
nobility  by  patent  composed  of  officials  and  monied  classes,  stand  the  people 
proper,  those  who  have  to  work,  pay  taxes,  and  render  service.  Last  of  all 
come  the  slaves. 

According  as  this  fundamental  arrangement  subsists  or  has  been  ruined  by 
sole  monarchy,  the  Malayan  state  approaches  anarchy  or  despotism.  Thus  in 
Sulu  the  dignity  of  the  sultan  is  only  nominal,  the  real  power  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  magnates  or  dattus — among  the  Lubus  of  Sumatra  the  witch-doctors — who 
govern  the  districts  and  islands  as  fiefs  on  a  life  tenure.  This  nobility,  from 
which  the  ministers  also  come,  forms  a  council  in  which  the  influence  of  each 
dattu,  often  receiving  expression  by  force  of  arms,  is  proportioned  to  the  extent 
of  his  estates  and  the  number  of  his  slaves  ;  and  without  the  consent  of  this 
council  the  sultan  can  issue  no  orders.  Even  where  the  sultanate  is  hereditary 
the  understanding  that  a  relative  may  be  nominated  as  his  successor  offers  a  wide 
opening  to  free  choice,  and  the  members  of  the  council  are  all  more  or  less 
related  to  the  sultan.  All  revenues,  even  the  fines,  are  divided  among  the  whole 
government ;  the  sultan  gets  only  his  allotted  share,  so  that  he  has  to  send  out 
his  own  slaves  on  trading  or  plundering  expeditions.  Monopolies  such  as  that  of 
coffee,  which  has  made  the  Rajah  of  Goa  in  Celebes  a  millionaire  many  times 
over,  or  the  tin  monopoly  enjoyed  by  Palembang  over  Banca,  can  only  be 
imposed  under  European  protection.  More  limited  sources  of  revenue  are  found 
in  the  forming  of  royal  rights  such  as  those  of  fishing  or  rattan-cutting.  Next 
to  the  inviolable  prime  minister,  who  has  to  superintend  all  the  transactions  of  the 
sultan  and  the  nobles,  to  the  admiral  and  the  minister  of  justice,  stands  the 
"  tribune  of  the  people  "  ;  but  his  influence  is  as  a  rule  only  recognised  so  far  as 


THE  MALAY  FAMILY,    COMMUNITY,   STATE  445 

it  agrees  with  the  views  of  the  dattus.  The  legal  code  of  the  Malays  is  here 
unknown,  and  the  precepts  of  the  Koran  are  scarcely  followed.  There  exists  no 
protection  for  property  ;  the  dattus  are  fond  of  carrying  off  boys  and  girls  ;  and  a 
levy  en  masse,  such  as  has  often  terrified  the  Spanish  officials  in  the  Philippines, 
affords  a  gleam  of  hope,  since  so  long  as  a  war  lasts,  it  forms  a  check  to  the 
lawless  treatment  of  the  non- governing  classes.  Where  this  many-headed 
despotism  prevails,  and  religious  fanaticism  does  not  stir  up  hatred  of  foreigners, 
European  sovereignty  is  regarded  by  the  lower  orders  as  a  deliverance. 

Under   the   corroding    influence  of  Brahminism  the   little  island   of  Bali   is 
broken  up  into  nine  kingdoms,  which  by  means  of  four  pervading  castes,  and 
through  the  importance  of  influential  families,  encroach  upon  each  other.      Within 
each  little  country  there  are  clans,  often  several  in  one  village,  of  which  the   most 
numerously    represented     is    predominant,    though    the    others    pay    no    special 
obedience  to   it.      Caste  sets   a   number  of  citizens   free  from    all  burdens    while 
loading   others  with  tasks.      But    in   general  the    Balinese  are  tolerant    in    spite 
of  the    obstinacy  with  which    they  have  clung    to    the   worship  of    Siva.       To 
the    dattus    of    Sulu   correspond    in    Acheen    the   panglimas    or    tuwankus,    the 
hereditary  presidents   of  the  sagi  sub-divisions,  who  not  only  form   the  sultan's 
council,    but   also   elect   his    successor,    and    even   have  authority   to   depose   the 
monarch.      They  are  not  obliged  even  to  inform  the  sultan  of  their  arrangements, 
while  he  must  not  only  submit  to  them  at  all  times,  but  must,  whenever  he  under- 
takes anything,  admit  the  Panglima  to  his  confidence  in  regard  to  it.      He  has  to 
pay  them  a  yearly  compensation  for  the  internal  taxes  which  they  collect  for 
him,  his  own  revenue  consists  of  5  per  cent  of  the  value  of  all  goods  which  are 
imported  into  the  harbour  of  his  capital,  as   also  from   the  income  raised  in  the 
Sagi  divisions  on   imported  goods  and   on  the  sale  of  pepper,  usually  not  more 
than  three  or  four  thousand  pounds.      In  the  old   Malay  states  of  Sumatra  again 
the  government  is  an  absolute   monarchy  only  in  name  ;  in  Sambas  the  sovereign 
is  elected  by  the  high  council  of  sixteen,  and  is  at  bottom  only  their  president. 
On  the  other  hand,  in   Pontianak  and  in   Secadau  the  monarchy  is  absolute  in 
fact,  but  the  oppression  is  the  same  everywhere.      The  nobles  trouble  themselves 
about  nothing  but  the  fines,  and  practise  extortions  on  the  wealthy  and  prominent 
men  who  act  in  the  same  manner  by  the  people.     The  protection  of  European 
governments  has  often  increased  the  native  princes'  means  of  acquiring  power,  so 
that  rulers  in  Java  sought  in  pompous  extravagance  a  consolation  for  their  lost 
independence.      Similarly  in  conquered  territories  their  authority  has  grown,  the 
Sultan  of  Kutei  raises  ad  valorem  duties  of  10  per   cent  on  imports  and  exports, 
farms  out  the  monopolies  of  opium  and  salt,  works  the  coal  mines  of  Pelarung  and 
Batu-Pangal  as  part  of  his  prerogative,  and  is  besides  the  usurious  banker  of  his 
subjects,  getting   an  income  of  a   million   guilders.     Where,  as  in   the   case   in 
Tobah,  religious  motives  allow  to  the  ruler  the  position  of  a  little  pope,  we  see  the 
reverse  of  the  shield.    In  that  case  the  Panglimas  depend  entirely  on  the  rajah  and 
are  mere  officials.     The  position  of  this  ruler  is  strengthened  by  a  tone  of  popular 
condescension,  especially   at   festivals  ;   though  the   subject   approaches   his   lord 
literally  grovelling,  he  may  talk  with  him  freely  and  bring  forward  his  complaints. 
Smaller  rulers  are  not  sharply  distinguished  from  their  subjects  either  in  appear- 
ance or  in  their  houses.      In  Jambi,   Veth  found  the   residence  of  the    mighty 
sultan  marked  off  from  the  other  houses  only  by  a  somewhat  broader  ladder  to 


446  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

his  pile-built  palace.  Apart  from  Java  and  some  part  of  Celebes  and  Sumatra, 
population  in  the  Indian  Archipelago  is  in  no  way  dense,  and  for  this  reason  the 
rulers  are  shy  of  driving  their  subjects  across  the  frontier  by  severity.  The 
enlightened  Sultan  of  Kutei  used  to  send  ships  to  the  Amontai  district  in  Borneo 
in  order  to  stimulate  immigration,  paying  the  debts  of  the  colonists  and  giving 
them  free  land. 

The  insignia  of  chiefship  are  in  their  original  form  simple.  Among  the 
Tobah-Battaks  the  rajahs  wear  ivory  rings  on  the  upper  arm  ;  ornamental 
weapons,  silver-mounted  daggers  and  swords,  or  guns  with  costly  stocks,  are  also 
given  to  messengers  as  their  credentials.  Among  the  princes  who  have  felt  the 
influence  of  Indian  Mohammedanism  heavy  gold  crowns  richly  jewelled,  and  gold- 
embroidered  uniforms  are  usual. 

The  tribes  have  the  use  of  the  land,  but  the  prince  claims  the  ownership  of 
it  whenever  he  is  strong  enough  to  do  so.  Uncultivated  land  is  common,  but 
any  one  can  cultivate  it  on  his  own  account,  and  make  it  into  property  by  his 
labour.  In  Timorlaut  there  is  no  such  thing  as  sale  of  land,  whereas  Battak 
chiefs  sell  their  land  in  every  form.  In  Holontalo  sale  and  demise  of  landed 
property  can  only  take  place  with  the  chiefs  consent.  The  right  of  the  tribe  to 
the  ownership  of  the  soil  is  stoutly  maintained.  An  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
Dutch  to  move  some  tribes  in  Borneo  lower  down  their  river  failed,  because 
the  people  feared  that  the  descendants  of  the  Dyaks,  who  had  formerly  been 
settled  there,  would  demand  tribute  from  them,  as  they  were  entitled  to  do.  If 
no  heirs  are  forthcoming,  the  property  is  voted  by  the  people  to  one  of  the 
head-men.  Individuals  certify  their  right  to  property  by  hanging  up  dolls.  A 
branch  which  overhangs  another  man's  land  belongs  to  him. 

Colonisation,  in  the  form  of  conquest  and  settlement  beyond  seas,  plays, 
especially  in  the  east,  a  part  reminding  us  in  its  importance  of  the  Greek 
migrations.  It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  name  a  race,  however  small,  the 
traditions  of  which  are  not  based  upon  a  migration,  and  every  coast-district  shows 
foreign  elements  which  have  made  their  way  in  uninvited,  and  often  to  the 
detriment  of  the  older  populations.  Numerous  legends  tell  of  fraternal  dissen- 
sions, sicknesses,  or  elemental  catastrophes,  as  the  causes  of  colonisation.  Rights 
of  conquest  were  granted  by  the  rulers  of  Ternate  to  noble  families,  and  these 
became  viceroys  with  semi -sovereign  power,  in  Buru,  Ceram,  and  elsewhere. 
Colonisation  was  also  regulated  in  the  country  itself  In  Java,  where,  as  the 
population  increased,  clearings  had  to  be  made  at  points  lying  too  far  from  a 
village,  a  party  of  settlers  was  sent  out,  and  these  as  a  rule  remained  in  union 
with  the  village  whence  they  came.  Among  both  Malays  and  Battaks  in  Sumatra, 
and  also  in  North  Celebes,  special  names  are  found  for  these  daughter-settlements. 
Perhaps  certain  political  partnerships  are  connected  with  this  ;  thus  the  rulers  of 
Ternate  and  Tidor  treat  each  other  as  near  of  kin. 

Slavery,  which  has  not  much  hold  among  the  simpler  races,  is  strongly 
developed  among  the  "  town  Malays  "  of  Palembang,  Acheen,  and  the  like.  It 
affects  prisoners  of  war,  malefactors  who  cannot  pay  their  fines,  and  other  debtors, 
among  them  not  a  few  who  have  gambled  away  their  liberty  ;  whole  tribes  have 
become  enslaved  through  debt.  Illegitimate  children,  whether  the  parents  are 
free  or  slaves,  come  into  this  class.  As  a  rule  slaves  are  treated  as  members  of 
the   household,  can   buy  their  freedom,  and  in   practice   are   not   inferior  to  poor 


THE  MALAY  FAMILY,    COMMUNITY,    STATE  447 


relations  who  have  been  taken  into  the  house  for  the  worth  of  their  service. 
Rejang  law  recognises  temporary  slavery  as  a  penalty.  Slave-capture  and 
slave-trading  is  a  chief  line  of  business  among  all  Malays  who  trade  in  ships  of 
their  own.  Bali,  where  the  men  were  valued  as  soldiers  and  the  girls  as  mes- 
sengers, to  the  extent  that  in  Batavia  there  is  still  a  "Balinese  village,"  lost  a  great 
part  of  its  population  in  this  way.  In  the  states  which  have  been  conquered  by 
the  true  Malays,  the  distinction  between  gentlemen  and  plebeians  is  often  so  sharp 
that  one  may  speak  of  serfdom.  The  transition  from  freedom  to  slavery  is  found 
in  the  Ilapitas,  who  work  in  the  paddy  fields  of  the  Holontalos,  an«  wash  gold  for 
the  chief,  without  wages  ;  the  Mongohules,  who,  as  descendants  of  a  particular  race 
of  slaves,  assist  their  lords  only  on  festive  occasions,  and  lastly  the  "Wakos,  who 
are  slaves  acquired  by  purchase,  exchange,  inheritance,  or  gift. 

The  tribes  are  quite  as  exclusive  towards  outsiders  as  they  are  self-contained. 
Every  tribe  demands  not  only  the  sole  use  of  the  territory  in  which  it  lives,  but 
also  requires  respect  for  its  usages,  for  its  graves,  for  places  which  it  has  declared 
fadi  ox  pamali,  and  which  it  protects  by  crafty  traps.  Other  causes  also  contribute. 
Among  the  Ilongotes  individual  tribes  fight  fiercely  with  each  other,  though  for 
the  most  part  only  within  the  families  concerned  in  the  matter  ;  but  when  there 
is  any  question  of  a  campaign  against  Christians  or  Negritos,  friends  and  foes 
combine.  Head-hunting,  kidnapping,  and  piracy  of  an  incredibly  impudent  kind 
cannot  be  eradicated  in  the  Spanish  and  Dutch  territories.  On  the  other  hand, 
where  the  tribes  have  not  been  corrupted,  hospitality  towards  white  men  is  carried 
so  far  that  the  traveller  may  take  up  his  quarters  tranquilly  in  any  house  of  a 
kampong  that  he  pleases,  without  any  danger  of  an  unfriendly  reception.  The 
story  that  the  Dyaks  have  a  tendency  to  poison  strangers  who  enter  their 
territory  has  been  stated,  at  any  rate  in  South  and  Central  Borneo,  to  have 
no  foundation. 

The  frequent  state  of  war  caused  prescribed  forms  to  grow  up  for  declaring 
war,  making  peace,  and  contracting  alliances.  War  was  never  carried  on  in  blind 
rage,  but  in  a  chivalrous,  almost  sportsmanlike  fashion.  The  Battaks,  before 
taking  up  arms,  announce  the  war  by  a  cartel,  and  negotiate  for  days  together  in 
fiery  speeches,  while  neighbouring  chiefs  try  to  effect  an  accommodation ;  at  the 
end  of  everything,  the  first  death  is  decisive.  The  cartel  consists  of  a  piece  of 
bamboo  a  span  long,  on  which  are  written  the  grievances  and  the  declaration  of 
war,  a  bundle  of  straw  and  a  bamboo  knife,  to  denote  fire-raising  and  throat-cutting, 
and  a  spear-head  of  carved  bamboo  ;  the  whole  being  tied  up  in  a  bundle  and 
hung  up  at  night  where  the  enemy  will  see  it.  Among  the  Ilongotes  war  is 
signified  by  a  bundle  of  arrows  or  the  sprinkling  of  the  road  with  blood.  But  in 
spite  of  all  this,  war  does  not  break  out  unless  some  decided  act  of  hostility  is 
committed  within  eight  days.  Peace  is  often,  unhappily,  ratified  by  human 
sacrifices :  and  mingling  of  blood  exalts  friendship  to  the  rank  of  blood 
brotherhood.  Small  quarrels  of  daily  life  are  appeased  by  the  sirih-\>oyi, 
which  is  not  made  costly  and  ornamental  for  nothing,  and  is  a  means  of 
reconciliation  like  the  tobacco-pouch  or  rum  bottle  elsewhere. 

Ever  since  the  Malays  have  been  known,  the  habit  of  cutting  off  heads  with  a 
view  to  the  acquisition  of  trophies,  head-snapping  as  the  Dutch  call  it,  has  been 
one  of  their  most  successful  institutions.  Martin  de  Rada,  provincial  of  the 
Augustinians,  reports  its  existence  in  Luzon  as  early  as  the  year    1577,  and  up 


448 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


till  the  present  time  this  custom  of  prizing  the  skulls  of  enemies  has  held  its 
ground  among  savage  Dyak  and  Tagal  tribes  in  spite  of  vigorous  opposition  on 
the  part  of  the  colonial  authorities.  Head-hunting  flourishes  also  abundantly  in 
the  east — for  example,  in  Ceram.  In  order  to  understand  the  persistency  of  this 
custom  we  have  to  realise  that  it  has  a  religious  basis  in  the  worship  of  skulls 
universal  among  the  Malays,  owing  to  which  the  skulls  of  enemies  must 
have  appeared  the  most  desirable  sacrifice  which  could  be  offered  to  ancestral 
spirits.  Where  Christianity  or  Islam  have  gained  a  footing,  skull  worship  and 
•  -.  head  -  hunting     with     it 

have  rapidly  decreased 
within  a  generation.  In 
North  Borneo  the  skulls 
lie  among  old  lumber. 
Among  the  Igorrotes,  ac- 
cording to  Hans  Meyer, 
the  only  thing  that  sur- 
vives is  the  dance  ac- 
companied by  the  singing 
of  a  derisive  song  round 
the  bare  pole  on  which 
the  skull  was  formerly 
stuck.  Among  the  Ilon- 
gotes  before  the  marriage 
ceremony  is  completed, 
the  bridegroom  has  to 
bring  the  bride  a  number 
of  human  heads,  those 
of  Christians  being  pre- 
ferred. But  the  Dyaks 
are  said  to  fancy  Dyak 
heads  only.  Heads  are 
also  in  demand  to  place 
under  the  posts  at  the 
foundation  of  a  house  as 
a  gift  to  a  dead  man,  or  to  ornament  the  hall  of  a  chiefs  house  ;  none  but  a  suc- 
cessful head-hunter  is  entitled  to  be  tattooed.  Skulls  are  also  used  for  drinking 
cups,  while  the  teeth  and  hair  serve  for  the  adornment  of  the  body  and  weapons. 
When  the  Dutch  have  taken  skulls  away  from  head-hunters,  these  have  declined 
to  give  up  the  scalp  and  the  lower  jaw.  By  the  unwritten  common  law  of  these 
tribes  cutting  off  heads  is  the  only  effective  form  of  settling  tribal  enmities.  Head- 
hunting, though  it  originally  proceeded  from  religious  and  political  motives,  soon 
extended  the  circle  of  its  victims,  and  the  desire  of  possessing  skulls  became  a 
passion.  Every  neighbouring  village  almost  was  looked  upon  as  hostile,  and 
heads  were  cut  off  even  when  a  sleeping  man  had  to  be  killed  to  do  it.  A 
further  psychological  motive  for  the  practice  lay  in  the  decay  of  blood  feuds 
owing  to  idleness  ;  the  Dyak  is  lazy  and  will  stroll  patiently  about  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  paddy  fields  until  he  gets  a  good  opportunity  of  falling 
upon  one  or  two  defenceless  women  and  children.     "  Only  once  has  it  occurred," 


Basket  of  a  Dyak  head-hunter,  with  half  a  skull  hanging  on  it. 
(Munich  Museum.) 


THE  MALAY  FAMILY,    COMMUNITY,   AND   STATE 


449 


says  Michaelsen,  "  that  a  Dyak  of  Serajen,  whose  daughter  had  been  murdered 
by  a  head-hunter  of  Katingan,  followed  the  murderer  and  cut  his  head  off 
actually  at  the  festival  which  was  being  held  in  his  honour.  The  deed  caused 
such  terror  that  the  man  who  had  dared  to  do  such  a  thing  in  vengeance  for  his 
child  was  allowed  to  depart  unhindered  with  the  decapitated  head." 

Head -hunting  is  carried  on  systematically;  the  Dyaks  prepare  for  it  by 
religious  consecration.  They  build  themselves  a  hut  with  a  roof  on  four  posts, 
and  the  floor  raised  a  yard  high  ;  the  entrance  is  barred  with  coils  of  rattan  which 
are  hung  with  red  flowers,  young  palm  leaves,  and  a  quantity 
of  little  wooden  images  of  swords,  shields,  spears,  flying 
hornbills,  and  the  like.  Inside  the  hut  are  spears,  blow- 
guns,  quivers  with  freshly-poisoned  arrows,  shields,  swords, 
and  cuirasses,  enough  to  equip  a  band  of  head-hunters.  In 
this  hut  the  company  stays  for  a  period  of  four  to  six  days 
according  to  the  omens.  Before  they  leave  it  they  hide  in 
the  ground  a  number  of  rudely -carved  figures  equal  in 
number  to  their  numbers  in  order  to  appease  the  evil 
spirits.  Any  man  who  does  not  belong  to  the  band  is  for- 
bidden, on  pain  of  a  heavy  fine,  or  even  death,  to  approach  ^'"^"  head-basket  used  by 

,         7     7    ■    1  "-ni  •      •      )  •  Guinans  of  Luzon  —  one- 

tne   balei   hut.       Ihe    victims    property  is    untouched,    and     third    real    size.      (Dr. 
the  Alfurs  of  Ceram  before  they  place  themselves  in  am-     Meyer's  Collection. ) 
bush  even  warn   their  victim  by  damaging  his  fruit-trees   and   even   breaking  off 
twigs. 

The  connection  of  this  practice  with  cannibalism,  which  crops  up  here  and 
there  quite  independently  of  the  stage  of  civilization,  is  indicated  by  the  various 
uses  to  which  the  skull  and  other  parts  of  the  human  body  are  put.  One  practice 
replaces  the  other — thus  the  Battaks  are  cannibals  and  the  Dyaks  head-hunters  ; 
in  Timorlaut  alliances  are  clinched  by  eating  a  slave.  In  North  Borneo,  the 
people  of  Sulu,  who  are  alleged  not  to  be  head-hunters,  bind  their  victim  and  pierce 
him  through  the  breast  with  spears,  and  every  one  belonging  to  the  village  gives 
a  slash  to  the  quivering  body.  After  that  they  bury  the  corpse  without  taking  the 
skull ;  "  the  chiefs  of  Sulu  do  not  wish  that."  Their  neighbours  catch  the  victim's 
blood  in  little  bamboo  pails  in  order  to  sprinkle  their  fields  with  it.  According  to 
Bock  the  Bahu-Trings  eat  the  bodies  of  their  victims,  while  the  skulls  are  dric 
and  become  the  property  of  the  chief.  A.  B.  Meyer  has  no  doubt  that  the  custoir., 
which  Mas  reports  as  existing  among  the  Ifugaos  of  the  Philippines  and  in  Borneo 
of  swallowing  the  brain,  prevails  to  the  present  day  in  North  Luzon.  The  Alfurs 
of  Ceram  lay  the  skull  of  a  freshly-killed  man  in  the  foundation  of  their  commoi^ 
house.  Even  though  among  the  Battaks  in  recent  times  cannibalism  is  no  dail)' 
occurrence  performed  at  the  discretion  of  individuals,  but  is  only  employed  in  the 
case  of  prisoners  of  war  or  criminals  of  a  bad  kind,  yet  there  are  evidences  that 
the  prevalence  of  this  bad  habit  was  formerly  more  universal.  Human  flesh  is 
said  to  have  been  sold  in  the  Battak  country  in  open  market,  and  certain  rajahs 
are  alleged  to  have  eaten  it  daily  as  a  matter  of  liking,  and  people  have  also  eaten 
their  relations  when  ill.  A  simple  question  of  money  has  played  no  small  part 
in  the  difficulty  of  eradicating  cannibal  habits.  When  a  tiwa  feast  is  held  in 
honour  of  a  dead  person,  it  is  clearly  cheaper  to  slaughter  six  slaves  at  loo 
guilders  than  six  buffaloes  at  150. 

2  G 


45° 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


The  Malays  are  not  devoid  of  fighting  spirit,  though  large  populations,  like 
the  Javanese,  have  been  enervated  by  long  subjection.  It  is  impossible  to  deny 
courage  to  the  thousands  of  Bugises  who  are  devoted  to  piracy,  or  the  bold  slave- 
raiders  of  the  New  Guinea  coasts.  The  Dyak  is  a  born  warrior  ;  in  his  weapons 
the  requirements  of  modern  perfection  are  replaced  by  thorough  adaptation  to 
the  country,  and  the  dexterity  with  which  they  are  used.  The  training  of  boys 
proceeds  mostly  in  the  direction  of  arousing  military  valour  ;  war-dances,  religious 
ceremonies  at  marching  out,  talismans,  are  aids  to  courage.  In  Timorlaut  a 
butterfly  is  swallowed.     Women  and  children  often  take  part  in  war.     The  Battaks 

fetch  champions  from  a  distance,  as 
from  Acheen  ;  and  their  confidence 
is  proportioned  to  the  distance  whence 
they  come. 

To  the  tribe  and  its  communal 
groups  falls  also  the  duty  of  punishing 
criminals ;  and  especially  in  the  event 
of  the  criminal's  insolvency  to  arrange 
for  the  payment  of  his  fine.  But 
they  have  also  the  right,  as  an  alter- 
native, to  expel  hinl ;  which  puts  him 
in  the  position  of  an  outlaw,  since 
personal  protection  can  only  be 
guaranteed  by  membership  of  a  tribe. 
Further,  the  chief  cannot  enact  a  new 
law  without  the  consent  of  the  tribe. 
Malay  jurisprudence,  even  though  the 
conception  of  law  and  the  judicial 
position  are  unknown,  rests  on  usage; 
adat,  handed  down  by  tradition.  It 
has  passed  the  stage  of  private  retalia- 
tion, and  has  advanced  to  the  inflic- 
tion of  prescribed  penalties.  The 
transition  appears  in  the  fact  that  in 
a  case  of  adultery  the  injured  husband 
is  free  to  kill  his  wife  and  her  para- 
mour if  he  catches  them  in  the  act, 
or  until  the  trespass  has  been  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  chief;  in  Nias  he  can 
even  demand  assistance  for  the  purpose.  But  if  he  misses  the  moment,  the  offence 
must  be  dealt  with  by  law.  The  same  applies  to  theft  and  homicide.  In  Johore, 
even  a  blow  in  the  face  can  be  punished  with  death  ;  but  it  must  be  within  three 
days.  Cases  of  lynching  have  occurred  even  after  the  police  had  taken  charge 
of  the  offender.  When  the  law  comes  into  operation,  almost  every  trespass  can 
be  atoned  for  by  a  money-fine,  and  even  this  becomes  superfluous  since  the  injured 
party  is  satisfied  if  he  can  be  indemnified  by  means  of  private  agreement.  If 
any  one  is  suspected  of  theft,  the  friends  of  the  person  injured  try,  in  the  first 
instance,  to  ascertain  whether  the  thief  has  the  means  to  offer  an  indemnity. 
Indemnity  or  recompense  is  the  right  word  ;  the  notion  of  "  penalty  "  generally 
goes  no  further  than  private  or  blood-revenge.      In  the  prosecution  of  a  criminal 


Chief  and  dignitary  of  Nias.     (From  a  photograph.) 


THE  MALAY  FAMILY,    COMMUNITY,  AND  STATE  45 1 

and  the  levying  of  the  fine  the  community  of  tribal  action  is  among  many  tribes 
very  striking.  In  Macassar  the  atonement  for  a  male  slave  is  20  reals,  for  a 
female  30,  for  a  free  man  30,  for  a  free  woman  40,  for  a  man  of  noble  family  80. 
Among  the  Rejangs  of  Sumatra,  according  to  Marsden,  it  is  500  dollars  in  the 
higher  class  of  chiefs,  250  in  the  lower,  whether  for  man  or  woman,  150  for  a  free 
man's  wife,  and  80  for  himself.  Among  the  Pasemahs  the  atonement  for  a 
child  of  one  of  the  higher  classes  is  equal  to  that  for  a  man  of  the  next  lower. 
Wounds  above  the  hips  cost  more  than  those  in  the  lower  parts  ;  and  those  inflicted 
with  a  kriss  more  than  those  with  a  stick.  That  the  system  of  money  compen- 
sation leads  to  abuses  will  be  obvious  ;  in  the  case  of  adultery  it  is  absolutely  made 
a  source  of  profit.  In  South  Borneo,  ladies  who  overstep  the  limits  of  conjugal 
fidelity  are  not  unfrequently  in  most  demand,  because  of  the  rights  which  their 
husbands  acquire  to  heavy  fines.  Affronts  are  also  very  frequent,  since  among  the 
traits  of  the  Malay  character  is  an  almost  morbid  feeling  of  the  honour  which 
is  due  to  a  man.  A  contemptuous  look,  a  slight  blow,  the  act  of  stepping  over 
a  person  who  is  lying  on  the  ground,  often  enough  lead  to  homicide. 

Theft  and  adultery  are  the  usual  offences,  while  murder,  serious  wounding, 
incendiarism,  and  other  grave  misdeeds  have,  in  some  of  the  smaller  territories 
like  Buru  and  Engano,  not  occurred  within  the  memory  of  man,  which  accounts 
for  the  high  standard  of  penalties,  particularly  of  theft ;  it  is  usual  to  burn 
highway  robbers. 

Appeals  to  the  judgment  of  God  are  still  frequent ;  especially  trial  by  fire. 
Common  forms  of  ordeal  are  ducking,  pulling  a  ring  out  of  boiling  oil,  or  licking 
red-hot  iron.  In  cases  of  obstinate  denial,  or  where  the  ordeal  is  indecisive, 
wager  of  battle  decides  in  Timorlaut.  The  Tagals  have  borrowed  from  Christians 
the  trial  by  candle,  in  which  a  consecrated  candle,  being  lighted,  bends  towards 
the  guilty  person.  Among  the  Igorrotes  the  two  parties  to  a  suit  have  the  backs 
of  their  heads  scratched  with  sharp  splinters  of  bamboo,  and  the  one  who  loses 
most  blood  loses  his  case.  A  form  of  divine  judgment  which  here  also  occurs  is 
arrived  at  by  testing  the  size  of  the  gall  of  a  hen  which  has  been  roasted  to  death. 
Superstition  encroaches  upon  penal  law  in  so  far  that  on  great  emergencies  persons 
guilty  of  adultery  or  incest  are  put  to  death  to  propitiate  the  gods.  Among  the 
Lubus,  when  a  man  has  to  take  an  oath,  the  witch-doctor  administers  it  in  the 
formula,  "  May  I  be  torn  to  pieces  by  tigers,  carried  away  by  water,  swallowed  by 
crocodiles,  and  killed  by  snakes  if  I  am  not  speaking  the  truth."  Among  the 
Alfurs  of  Halmahera  the  oath  is  confirmed  by  drinking  water  in  which  weapons 
have  been  dipped  ;  among  those  of  Coram,  the  persons  swearing  dip  their  weapons 
into  a  little  cask  of  arrack  in  which  are  placed  a  small  wooden  crocodile  and  an  ill- 
favoured  human  figure  ;  sentence  is  pronounced  frequently  beside  sacred  trees  or 
stones.  In  Ceram,  a  league  resembling  the  secret  societies  of  the  Oceanians  grew 
in  process  of  time  into  a  judicial  league,  the  chief  aim  of  which  was  the  settling 
of  disputes  without  the  interference  of  government.  Every  participator  has  a 
cross  tattooed  on  his  breast ;  persons  are  admitted  at  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  of 
age,  and  for  fourteen  days  before  admission  instruction  is  given  by  a  teacher  in 
a  remote  hut.  The  league  has  a  tripartite  council,  which,  on  occasion,  finds  a 
sanction  for  its  sentences  in  decapitation. 

The  pamali,pali,fadi,fosso,  or  sassie  of  the  Malay  races  is  not  simply  equivalent 
to  the  taboo  of  the  Polynesians,  it  has  more  the  sense  of  the  Micronesian  mugul. 


452  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

that  which  is  well-mannered  or  lawful.  Most  nearly  connected  with  it  is  the 
uJium  of  the  Dyaks,  it  is  only  when  it  is  employed  for  religious  or  political  purposes 
that  it  acquires  the  stricter  character  of  taboo.  Places  are  tabooed  commonly  by 
hanging  up  a  bunch  of  palm  leaves  ;  they  have  either  been  so  from  ancient  times 
or  they  are  declared  pamali  by  old  men  on  the  ground  of  their  experience.  The 
Alfurs  of  Halmahera  are  even  forbidden  to  look  upon  the  sea ;  the  prohibition 
of  certain  foods,  such  as  apply  to  venison,  pork,  and  various  kinds  of  fish, 
require  pamali  to  enforce  them.  Any  contact  with  the  wife  of  another  is 
declared  pamali  in  Ternate  ;  whole  villages  become  pamali  owing  to  a  death, 
and  inflict  punishment  for  any  infringement  of  it.  The  obviously  arbitrary 
character  of  the  tabooings  permits  of  a  thing  being  set  down  as  unpermitted 
by  reason  of  a  dream. 

The  fadi  of  the  Malagasies,  again,  is  not  the  mere  taboo  of  the  Polynesians 
overshadowing  relations  of  every  kind  ;  it  means  much  the  same  as  forbidden, 
unlucky,  not  to  be  touched,  sacred.  Hens  Are- fadi  in  the  district  of  Behare  on 
the  south  coast  of  Madagascar  ;  and  consequently  no  hen  may  come  thither,  and 
the  shooting  of  birds  is  forbidden.  Elsewhere  the  dog  or  some  other  beast 
occupies  this  position,  perhaps  with  some  reference  to  the  kobong  or  totem.  The 
monthly  fadi  days  exercise  great  influence  ;  any  child  who  is  born  on  unlucky  days 
of  this  kind  is  buried  alive,  as  Grandidier  quite  recently  reported  in  regard  to  the 
Antanosses.  Tender  parents,  by  means  of  money  and  good  words,  obtain  permis- 
sion for  the  sacrifice  of  a  finger-joint  to  be  accepted  as  atonement  for  arrival  on 
an  unlucky  day.  A  great  part  of  the  influence  of  the  chiefs  rests  upon  the  fact 
of  their  being  credited  with  a  knowledge  of  lucky  and  unlucky  days  in  which 
astrological  considerations  appear  to  be  involved.  In  Imerina,  every  idol  had 
formerly  \i\?.  fadi  day  upon  which  those  who  were  specially  dedicated  to  him  did 
no  work,  and  thus,  even  at  the  present  time,  every  Hova  of  high  rank  abstains 
from  particular  foods  on  his  fadi  day  and  passes  it  in  complete  seclusion. 

Numerical  superstitions  are  expressed  in  many  curious  ways.  The  number 
one  arouses  apprehension,  and,  accordingly,  to  every  burden  at  least  two  bearers 
are  required  ;  on  the  other  hand  twelve  is  a  good  number — the  king  has  twelve 
wives,  there  are  twelve  sacred  places  in  I  marina,  and  twelve  royal  ancestors ; 
twelve  capital  crimes,  and  twelve  executions  for  them.  We  find  the  same  capricious 
tricks  of  thought  as  in  fetish  superstitions. 


§  20.    THE    MALAGASIES 

Madagascar— Its  people— Negroid  and  Malay  elements  —  Reported  dwarfs— Influence  of  India,  Europe, 
Arabia — The  family  :  children  and  naming — Marriage — Blood-brotherhood — The  polity^Classes— Slaves 
— Constitutions — The  Hova  kingdom — Historical  sketch — The  king — All  properly  vested  in  the  crown- 
The  sovereign  as  high  priest— Lavifs— Ordeals— MiUtary  affairs. 

Madagascar!  is  one  of  the  largest  inhabited  islands.  With  an  area  of  250,000 
square  miles,  in  a  genial  climate,  endowed  with  a  good  soil,  and  well  watered,  it 
offers  not  only  space,  but   all   the   necessary   conditions  for  the  development  of  a 

^  The  name  Madagascar  is  given  to  the  island  only  by  the  Hovas,  who  called  themselves  Malagasy,  in 
contra-distinction  to  the  other  tribes.  The  inhabitants  of  the  adjacent  islands  use  the  term  Tari-Be,  or  Great 
Land.     The  Swahili  call  it  Bakini.     The  name  in  the  form  Madagascar  occurs  in  Marco  Polo. 


THE  MALAGASIES  453 


special  race.  It  is  250  miles  from  the  east  coast  of  Africa,  450  from  Bourbon, 
1350  from  Arabia,  and  about  the  same  distance  from  India.  The  southward  set  of 
the  currents  isolates  it  still  further  on  the  south  and  west ;  but  the  north  and  east 
coasts  are  washed  by  the  tranquil  waters  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  with  its  regularly 
recurring  monsoons  ;  interrupted,  however,  too  often  by  devastating  cyclones.  The 
best  harbours  are  on  the  north-west  coast. 

Madagascar  is  mainly  a  country  of  highlands  ;  most  of  the  interior  consists 
of  lofty  plateaux  and  mountains,  rising  in  the  summit  of  Tsiafazavona  to  8635 
feet.  The  cool  bracing  climate  of  the  Hova  highlands  has  doubtless  contributed 
to  make  the  people  what  they  are.  There  is  a  narrow  belt  of  forest  on  the 
level  coasts,  then  swamps  and  morasses,  followed  by  gently-rising  swelling  plains, 
which  gradually  ascend  in  steps  to  the  plateau  of  Imerina,  crowned  with  peaks. 
This  forest  and  meadow  region  is  the  most  promising  district  in  Madagascar  ;  on 
the  highest  plateaux  heath  prevails.  The  small  extent  of  forest  may  be  explained 
by  the  unequal  distribution  of  rainfall  over  the  year ;  but  a  good  deal  of  wood 
has  been  burnt,  a  common  practice  of  the  Malagasies  with  a  view  to  obtaining 
arable  land.  Lying  as  the  country  does  within  the  zone  of  trade-winds,"  the 
contrast  between  the  wet  and  the  longer  dry  season  is  heightened.  No  less  in 
the  highlands  than  in  the  low  coast  country  droughts  alternate  with  inundations, 
and  the  lie  of  the  ground  causes  great  inequalities  in  the  rate  at  which  the  water 
runs  off.  The  lagoons  which  lie  in  a  long  chain,  especially  on  the  east  coast, 
form  to  some  extent  a  substitute  for  rivers.  The  native  flora  supplies  no  part  of 
the  food  of  the  people  ;  but  the  prairies  of  the  coast  and  the  grass-covered  surface 
of  the  interior  support  the  herds  of  cattle  which  play  an  important  part  in  every 
department  of  Malagasy  life.  The  best  arable  land  is  found  where  woods  have 
been  burnt.  The  coast  is  fringed  with  the  coco-palm,  perhaps  indigenous.  The 
sago-palm  also  grows,  but  the  natives  make  no  use  of  it.  The  most  useful  palm 
is  the  Rafia  {Sagus  raphid),  of  which  the  midrib  of  the  leaves,  some  20  feet  long, 
and  the  delicate  pinnate  leaves,  afford  an  admirable  fibre.  The  plaiting  of  grass- 
mats,  hats,  and  baskets  is  a  great  occupation  of  the  Malagasy  women.  In  some 
parts  of  the  coast  and  in  the  Betsileo  country  the  poor  people  use  grass  mats  as 
clothing,  houses  are  thatched  with  grass,  and  rafts,  after  the  fashion  of  bamboo- 
rafts,  are  built  with  the  light  three-edged  stems  of  a  papyrus-like  sedge.  In  the 
highlands,  where  wood  is  scarce,  grass  is  almost  the  only  fuel.  There  are  many 
dye-plants,  and  indigo  is  cultivated. 

In  few  parts  of  the  earth  does  man  come  so  little  into  contact  with  the  native 
fauna  as  here.  It  would  seem  as  if  imported  plants  and  animals  had  had  a  far 
wider-reaching  influence  than  those  indigenous  to  the  country  ;  no  instance  has 
been  met  with  of  real  domestication  of  a  native  animal  or  cultivation  of  a  native 
plant  unless  the  coco-palm  be  one. 

Though  compelled  by  its  situation  to  link  its  fortunes  with  Africa,  Madagascar 
is,  so  far  as  the  national  life  is  concerned,  wholly  detached  from  that  continent. 
It  lay,  doubtless,  from  an  early  period,  widely  open  to  Asiatic  influences; 
we  can  even  at  this  present  day  trace  to  Southern  Asia  the  separate  origm  of 
a  portion  of  the  population.  The  basis  was,  however,  no  doubt  African,  and  the 
stage  of  civilization  which  this  island,  destined  to  be  so  important,  has  attamed, 
is  rather  African  than  Asiatic  in  its  character.  The  course  of  its  history  has 
been  aimlessly  split  up,  with  no  influence  on  the  sum  of  human  development ; 


454 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


the  part  taken  by  Madagascar  in  the  history  of  the  people  surrounding  the  Indian 
Ocean  has  been  as  imperceptible  as  that  of  East  Africa. 

We  can  perceive  in  the  Malagasy  population  a  great  variety  of  physical 
characteristics.  Their  colour  is  of  all  shades,  from  the  light  bronzed  yellow  of  the 
southern  European  to  a  deep  brownish  black  ;  their  hair  of  all  kinds,  from  the 
African  wool  to  the  stiff  straight-haired  shock  of  the  Malay ;  their  physiognomy 
of  every  type  between  Negroid  and  Mongoloid.  Sometimes  we  find  all  these 
peculiarities  occurring  in  different  degrees  in  the  same  stock  ;  sometimes  obviously 
distributed  among  different  stocks.  The  broad  division  into  the  two  main  com- 
ponent groups,  Malayan 
and  African  respectively, 
of  Hovas  and  Sakalavas,  is 
as  unquestionable  as  it  is 
difficult  to  trace  in  indi- 
viduals. No  less  obscure  is 
the  history  of  their  amalga- 
mation. In  spite  of  transi- 
tional forms,  showing  mix- 
ture elsewhere,  quite  enough 
of  the  pure  breed  has  con- 
tinued to  exist  on  either 
side. 

The  Malay  element  has 
apparently  been  preserved 
in  its  purest  form  among 
the  most  powerful  people  of 
Madagascar,  the  Hovas."^ 
They  are  not  tall,  but  fairly 
well  built,  active  and  lively, 
tough  rather  than  strong. 
Their  colour  is  a  yellowish 
olive,  many  being  fairer  than 
the  average  of  southern 
Europeans  ;  the  lower  part  of  the  face  slightly  retreating  ;  hair  black,  stiff  or 
curly  ;  eyes  chestnut  brown.  The  Malayan  features,  however,  are  to  be  found  not 
only  among  the  Hovas  ;  indeed,  owing  to  their  wars  and  their  wide  extension  all 
over  the  island  they  no  longer  display  the  type  so  clearly  as  some  of  the  tribes 
which  have  remained  settled  near  the  coast.  Sibree  found  among  the  Betsimi- 
sarakas  persons  lighter  than  the  Hovas.  Nor  must  the  women  be  forgotten. 
Many  light-complexioned  Hova  women  are,  in  contrast  to  the  men,  of  remarkable 
beauty.  Owing  also  to  their  intellectual  superiority,  they  have  for  a  long  time 
taken  a  leading  place  in  the  history  of  the  island.  Since  the  arrival  of  Euro- 
peans, mulattoes,  whether  from  the  island  itself  or  Bourbon  and  Mauritius,  have 
also  played  their  part,  more  especially  in  connection  with  the  European  acquisition 
of  property,  and  in  the  two  Sakalava  kingdoms  to  the  west.  More  recent 
observers  are  inclined  to  attribute  the  Hova  supremacy  to  a  strong  infusion  of 
white  blood. 

'  The  French  call  the  Hovas  "Malgaches,"  and  all  the  other  inhabitants  of  the  island  "  Sakalaves." 


Malagasy  of  Negroid  type.     (From  a  photograph  in  Pruner  Bey's 
Collection. ) 


THE  MALAGASIES 


455 


In  former  times  a  race  of  dwarfs  was  reported  to  exist  on  the  island.  Some 
consider  these  fabulous  ;  others  hold  that  they  have  become  extinct.  Ellis  has 
endeavoured  to  connect  with  the  Wazimba  the  stories  told  by  De  Commerson 
(1 77 1)  and  others  about  the  Quimos,  a  people  said  to  be  smaller  than  the 
Hovas,  hght-coloured,  and  active.  Tradition  records  them  to  have  been  the 
builders  of  those  great  dolmen-like  stone  sepulchres  which  are  numerous  in  the 
interior. 

We  cannot  state  with  any  certainty  all  the  foreign  elements  in  the  popula- 
tion ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of 
their  importance,  especially  in  the  econ- 
omic life.  First  appear  the  energetic, 
reckless  Arabs  and  Swahilis  ;  then  the 
more  peaceful  but  at  the  same  time 
more  astute  Indians.  Swahili  settle- 
ments may  be  found  on  almost  every 
favourable  point  of  the  coast ;  nearly 
all  the  trade  is  in  the  hands  of  Indians. 
There  are  some  few  traces  of  even 
more  distant  visitors.  Edrisi  speaks  of 
trade  with  China  as  existing  in  his 
day  ;  and  this  has  been  newly  revived 
by  pig-tailed  immigrants. 

We  know  nothing  as  to  the  number 
of  the  Arabs  in  the  island,  but  it  is 
certainly  considerable.  Tradition  re- 
fers whole  tribes  to  an  Arab  origin, 
and  we  find  early  evidence  of  a  know- 
ledge of  Madagascar  in  Arabian  writers. 
The  Arabic  alphabet  is  used  in  the 
south  of  Madagascar,  and  Arabic  books 
are  found  on  the  east  coast ;  while  in 
the  north,  under  English  influence,  the 
Hovas  have  introduced  English  letters. 
Christianity  has  in  some  parts  degraded  Arabic  to  the  position  of  a  magic 
language,  and  amulets  are  worn  with  Arabic  inscriptions,  now  quite  unintelligible. 
But  how  came  Islam,  which  has  carried  out  its  propaganda  with  so  much 
success  in  East  Africa,  to  remain  confined  to  the  coast  in  Madagascar  ?  The 
Hovas,  who  are  the  born  foes  of  the  coast  population,  embraced  Christianity  very 
rapidly,  seeing  in  it  above  all  the  antagonist  of  Islam.  Formerly  perhaps  it  was 
otherwise,  for  Cameron  has  collected  Hova  customs  having  a  strong  affinity  with 
the  Jewish  ;  and  these  may  perhaps  even  more  probably  be  an  inheritance  from 
the  Arabs. 

As  to  the  arrangement  of  the  various  elements  or  layers  in  point  of  date,  we 
know  that  in  a  history  of  Madagascar  published  in  1874  at  Antananarivo  a  list 
was  given  of  thirty-six  Hova  chiefs  and  kings.  This  would  correspond  at  most  to 
a  period  of  eight  hundred  years.  Philologists,  however,  put  the  Malay  immigration, 
on  account  of  the  ancient  forms  preserved  in  the  Malagasy  dialects,  before  the  date 
of  its  extension  over  Polynesia.      Besides  Arabic  and  Swahili,  only  Malay  dialects 


Malagasy  of  Negroid  type.     (Same  source.  \ 


456 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


are  spoken  throughout  the  island  ;  and  these  are  so  much  alike  that  all  Malagasies 
can,  even  if  with  some  difficulty,  understand  each  other. 

No  one  has  hitherto  seriously  doubted  the  essentially  Malay  nature  of  the 
Malagasy  dialects,  above  all,  of  the  Hova.  But  attempts  have  been  made  to 
diminish  its  importance,  by  regarding  the  Malay  admixture  as  casual  fragments, 
a  kind  of  flotsam,  as  it  were.  At  all  events,  the  Malagasy  has  drawn  not  only 
on  the  Malay  language  ;  its  affinities  were  at  least  as  strong  with  the  Polynesian. 
Cousin  regards  it  as  an  older  independent  offshoot  from  the  same  family  of 
languages  as  thalt  of  which  Malay  and  Polynesian  are  younger  members.  The 
successive  appearance  of  African  and  South  Asiatic  elements  in  the  population 
is  an  assured  fact,  resting  more  on  physical  than  on  linguistic  evidence.  If  we 
demand  ethnographic  proofs  we  have  the  existence  of  an  essentially  East  African 
breed  of  cattle.  On  the  other  hand,  agriculture,  with  its  cultivation  of  rice,  tare, 
and  the  sugar-cane,  inclines  more  to  Southern  Asia.     The  latter  is  more  strongly 


Sakalava  musical  instrument — one-third  real  size.      (Berlin  Museum. ) 


represented  in  the  east,  among  the  Hovas  ;  the  former  in  the  west  among  the 
Sakalavas.  The  universal  employment  of  rafia  fabrics  for  clothing  hardly  explains 
the  very  small  use  made  of  skins,  of  which  the  cattle-breeding  tribes  of  Africa  are 
so  fond  ;  bark  is  used  here  as  freely  as  in  Central  Africa  and  Melanesia.  Among 
weapons  we  do  not  find  the  Central  African  missile  knife,  nor  the  African  bow. 
For  smelting  iron  the  Malagasy  use  the  spring-bellows  found  among  the  Malays. 
Fadi  suggests  reminiscences  of  the  Malayan  and  Polynesian  taboo,  but  is  not 
pushed  to  such  extremes.  Political  life  was,  until  the  rise  (with  European  help) 
of  the  Hovas,  the  great  power  in  Madagascar,  modelled  on  African  lines ;  but 
the  religious  ideas  are  more  akin  to  those  of  Southern  Asia.  Thus  the  general 
impression  produced  by  the  ethnological  facts  tallies  with  that  derived  from 
language  ;  we  have  a  Malay-African  mixture  in  which  the  Malay  and  Polynesian 
element  predominates. 

The  first  inhabitants  were  Africans.  Then  came  Malays  and  other  peoples 
from  the  eastern  and  northern  shores  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  gradually  mingled 
with  the  earlier  comers.  The  Hovas  and  their  kindred  are  shown  by  their 
relative  purity  of  race  to  have  come  later.  It  is  no  less  certain  that  more  than 
one  Malay  immigration  took  place  than  that  it  was  not  a  casual  arrival.  There 
must  have  been  a  long-continued  influx,  and  the  Malays  must  have  had  an 
intimate  intercourse,  perhaps  connected  with  the  old  Malay  civilization  in  further 
India  and  the  Archipelago,  with  the  countries  to  the  west  of  the  Indian  Ocean. 


THE  MALAGASIES 


457 


A,''' 


Malay   traces   in    Africa   show   that   these    Orientals   were    not   stopped   by   the 
Mozambique  Channel. 

The  modern  conditions  of  seafaring  in  East  Africa  are,  in  the  view  of  some 
ethnographers,  opposed  to  the  idea  of  a  voluntary  migration  over  sea.  But 
seamanship  and  nautical  capacity  are  no  permanent  possession,  as  we  may  learn 
from  many  instances  in  Polynesia  and  the  Asiatic  home  of  the  Malays.  There 
is  no  need  to  assume,  as  some  have  done,  that  at  the  date  of  this  immigration 
there  were  many  more  volcanic  islets  in  the  Mozambique  Channel,  to  serve  as 
stepping-stones.  Energetic  Africans  may  easily  have  found  their  way  across  ; 
nor  indeed  have  they  ever  lacked  courage  in  those  parts.  How  the  cows  were 
got  over  is  still  a  puzzle  ;  here  is  involved  a  point  in  the  art  of  sea-travel 
which  we  find  indeed  was  known  to  the  Arabs,  but  hardly  among  the  races 
now  more  immediately  under  consideration. 

The  population  of  Madagascar  is  estimated 
at  three  to  four  millions  ;  it  is  certainly  fifteen 
or  twenty  times  less  than  by  European  standards 
it  should  be.  The  Hovas  are  reckoned  at 
750,000  to  1,200,000.  Imerina,  on  the  interior 
table-land,  and  some  parts  of  the  provinces  of 
Betsileo  and  Bara  are  the  most  densely  inhabited. 
In  forming  a  judgment  of  the  character  of  the 
people,  we  must  not  overlook  race -differences. 
The  Hova,  like  all  Malays,  is  undoubtedly  cal- 
culating rather  than  straightforward,  pliant  rather 
than  strong.  Both  his  faults  and  his  virtues 
have  their  origin  in  a  kind  of  softness,  which 
leads  him  to  welcome  European  influences,  and 
even  Christianity,  warmly,  but  does  not  allow 
him  to  keep  a  firm  hold  upon  the  benefits  which 
they  offer.  When  decision  is  required  he  avoids 
giving  a  definite  answer,  prevaricates,  and  always  keeps  a  door  of  retreat  open. 
His  greed  and  insatiable  cupidity  are  yet  not  adequate  to  the  foundation  of 
a  vigorous  economic  life.  Immoderate  use  of  spirituous  drinks  has  become 
,  historical  in  Madagascar  ;  a  king  of  good  dispositions  lost  his  throne  by  reason  of 
it  Political  revenge,  assassination,  and  poisoning  are  common.  The  Hova  has 
a  strong  sense,  scarcely  justified  by  his  general  position,  of  his  own  superiority 
to  the  other  races  of  the  island,  who  are  for  the  moment  in  subjection  to  him. 
Their  love  of  home,  which  nothing  wiir break,  is  of  political  importance;  they 
always  dislike  going  abroad,  and  are  glad  to  return. 

The  Malagasies  are  passionately  fond  of  music,  and  the  kmg  and  nobles 
always  keep  their  bards  close  at  hand.  The  instruments  are  eminently  Malayan 
in  character.  The  Antsiva  or  shell-trumpet  of  the  Malays  and  Polynesians  is 
regarded  as  very  important.  A  great  sea-shell,  with  a  hoarse  note,  which  only 
kings  may  legally  use,  serves  to  call  the  soldiers  to  arms.  No  religious  ceremony 
takes  place  without  dances,  songs,  or  firing  of  guns.  Great  political  revolutions, 
which  ferment  silently  among  the  people,  are  often  first  announced  by  a  mama 
for  dancing,  said  to  be  demonic  possession,  which  finds  its  victims  in  all  classes. 
Dancing  and  singing  are  also  used  as  cures  for  illness. 


Hova  guitar  and  powder-horn. 
Museum. ) 


(Dresden 


458 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


There  are  indications  showing  that  before  the  arrival  of  Europeans  the  year 
consisted  of  twelve  months,  each  of  twenty-eight  days.  Another  twenty-eight 
days  were  so  distributed  among  the  months  as  to  make  every  new  year  begin 
with  a  new  moon.  The  Hova  names  for  the  months  are  Arabic  ;  but  the  coast- 
tribes  form  names  from  words  of  their  own.  Navigation  was  so  rare  that  we 
hear  little  of  observations  of  the  stars  either  for  orientation  or  measurement 
of  time.  The  planting  of  rice  and  other  important  affairs  were  regulated  by 
the  setting  of  the  sun  at  a  fixed  point  of  the  horizon. 

The  original  Malagasy  costume,  worn 
by  Hovas  and  Sakalavas  alike,  consisted 
of  a  loin-cloth,  reaching  in  the  case  of  men 
to  the  knees,  in  women  to  the  feet.  This 
has  unfortunately  been  driven  out  by  Euro- 
pean dress,  which  the  Hovas  were  actually 
the  earliest  to  adopt.  The  woolly-haired 
tribes  for  the  most  part  dress  their  hair 
in  puffs  ;  the  Hovas  wear  it  short  or  parted 
in  the  middle,  and  on  their  heads  broad- 
brimmed  straw  hats.  The  most  favourite 
ornaments  are  arm  or  finger-rings,  of  brass 
or  silver — the  arm-rings  more  especially  on 
the  west  coast,  where  Arab  fashions  prevail. 
Nose-rings  in  the  Indian  style  are  also 
found.  Among  the  Sakalavas,,  though  the 
men  are  not  tattooed,  the  women  mark 
themselves  with  a  thorn  or  a  needle  on 
their  upper  arms,  where  the  outlines  of 
crosses,  stars,  or  serpentine  figures  may 
often  be  seen.  The  Hovas  are  not  tattooed, 
but  among  the  Betsileos  the  women  tattoo 
neck  and  bosom.  Among  the  Sakalavas  of 
the  west  coast  the  barbaric  Indian  ear-lobe 
plugs  may  be  seen.  Some  of  the  forest 
tribes  of  the  interior  have  a  way  of  staining 
their  teeth  black  with  a  paste  called  by 
Sibree  laingo  ;  they  are  said  to  stain  alter- 
nate teeth,  leaving  the  others  white. 
The  dominant  position  of  the  Hovas  having  been  won  easily  by  the  use  of 
European  weapons,  other  tribes  have  had  to  follow  suit,  and  fire-arms  are  almost 
universal.  Even  among  the  more  remote  tribes  the  warriors  carry  a  gun  with 
their  two  javelins.  Yet  even  in  Antananarivo  one  may  often  see  spears,  battle- 
axes,  short  daggers,  and  wooden  shields  covered  with  buffalo  hide  ;  though  only 
the  wilder  tribes  are  said  still  to  possess  any  dexterity  in  handling  the  spear. 
Besides  the  bow  the  Malayan  blow-gun,  6  to  lo  feet  long,  is  also  found;  the 
arrows  used  with  it  are  splinters  of  bamboo  or  reed,  about  20  inches  in  length, 
padded  at  the  hinder  end  with  the  silky  fibres  from  the  seed  of  an  asclepiad  plant, 
or  with  feathers,  in  order,  by  preventing  windage,  to  increase  the  initial  speed  and 
steady  the  missile  in  its  flight. 


Malagasy  necklace  of  carved  horn. 
Society's  Museum. ) 


(Missionary 


THE  MALAGASIES 


459 


All  Malagasy  houses  are  built  on  a  very  similar  ground-plan  ;  an  evidence 
for  the  similarity  of  the  races  from  an  ethnographical  point  of  view.  Clay, 
which  in  this  granitic  island  occurs  abundantly,  is  built  up  in  layers  about  20  inches 
high  of  rather  less  thickness.  In  this  way  are  formed  walls,  which,  to  the  surprise 
of  Europeans,  are  capable  of  defying  the  heaviest  rain  for  many  years.  The  roof 
does  not  rest  on  the  walls  but  on  three  posts.  It  is  steep  and  high,  and  is  thatched 
with  reeds  or  rushes.  Only  the  wealthiest  people  in  Antananarivo  have  roofs  of 
painted  shingles  or  earthen  tiles.  At  the  gable  the  roof-spars  cross  ;  their  ends 
are  notched  and  often  terminate  with  some  little  carved  work,  such  as  a  pair  of 
ox-horns,  or  a  small  bird,  in  which  we  may  probably  see  a  reminiscence  of  the 


House  of  a  Hova  chief.     (From  the  Globus.) 

tribal  token.  The  height  of  the  spars  indicates  the  owner's  rank.  The  house 
has  at  least  one  door  and  one  window  ;  the  doors  open  as  a  rule  to  the  westward, 
and  are  placed  about  a  foot  and  a  half  from  the  ground,  so  that  you  reach  the 
threshold  by  a  couple  of  stone  steps.  The  eastern  or  north-eastern  side  of  the 
house  is  sacred  ;  here  stands  the  ancestral  image  or  the  cross.  In  building,  the 
north-east  corner-post  is  erected  with  solemn  ceremonies.  This  is  the  regular 
Hova  type,  of  which  the  construction  of  the  capital  offers  magnificent  examples. 
In  the  royal  buildings — enormous  huts  with  sharp  roofs — every  floor  is  surrounded 
with  a  verandah  supported  on  mighty  tree-stems.  The  town  rises  in  terraces  ;  the 
narrow  roads  are  steep  and  bad,  and  the  houses  do  not  stand  in  rows,  but  are 
placed  anyhow.  Some  open  spaces  are  used  as  market-places.  In  the 
Sakalava  villages  the  houses  are  small,  irregularly  scattered  about  under  the 
shade  of  large  trees,  and  covered  with  foliage.  They  also  are  rectangular,  and 
usually  raised  from  three  to  six  feet  on  piles.  All  villages  and  many  single 
houses  are  enclosed  with  high  walls  of  reeds  or  mud.  Some  have  seen  in  this 
a  Mahommedan  custom  ;  but  it  probably  is  a  relic  of  the  times  when  every  little 


46o 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


Hova  tribe  was  at  war  with  its  neighbour,  and  on  every  hill  there  was  a  village 
with  three  lines  of  entrenchments  round  it.  When  a  strong  government  had  put 
an  end  to  this  reign  of  club-law,  the  people  came  down  into  the  plains  ;  though 
there  are  still  plenty  of  fortified  villages  in  the  Hova  country.  At  an  earlier 
period,  generally  referred  to  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  masonry 
was  better  executed  among  the  Malagasies  than  it  is  at  present,  so  that  unlike 
so  many  parts  of  Africa,  the  country  possesses  ruins  and  traditions. 

No  tribe  lives  entirely  without  agriculture.  As  with  the  Negroes  of  East 
Africa,  almost  the  only  implement  is  a  light  hoe.  The  fields  often  lie  far  from 
the  village  in  the  valley-openings  or,  on  the  level  ground  by  the  streams,  and 


Fenced  farm-houses  in  Imerina,  Madagascar.     (After  Ellis.) 

their  position  often  changes.  The  people  have  little  thought  for  the  future,  and 
sacrifice  their  woods  recklessly  so  as  to  get  fresh  land  and  the  manure  of  the 
ashes ;  there  is  no  replanting.  Thus  nearly  the  entire  Hova  country  is  now  bare 
of  wood  and  overgrown  with  grass ;  only  here  and  there  some  venerable  giant 
rises  aloft  as  an  evidence  of  bygone  grandeur.  Indian,  Arabian,  and  European 
influence  have  brought  the  cultivation  of  rice  and  sugar-cane  to  this  altitude. 
In  the  east  and  the  interior  rice  is  the  staple  food,  while  in  the  west  the  inhabit- 
ants live  more  on  maize,  cassava,  and  various  roots.  Even  in  the  last  century 
the  exportation  of  rice  was  considerable.  The  irrigation  of  the  rice  fields  is  in 
many  cases  artificial ;  the  treading  down  of  the  soil  is  performed  by  the  cattle. 
For  reaping,'  a  sickle  resembling  a  slightly  curved  serrated  knife  is  used.  The 
ears  are  then  thrashed  out  on  a  stone  and  winnowed.  Sugar-cane  is  widely 
cultivated  in  the  Hova  country.  It  is  crushed  between  cylinders  of  hard  wood, 
and  the  juice  allowed  to  flow  into  a  trough.  From  this  an  intoxicating 
drink  known  as  toakka  is  distilled.  The  sugar,  imperfectly  crystallised,  is  sold 
in  the  market  of  the  country.  Many  fruit-trees  have  been  imported,  such  as 
peaches,  oranges,  lemons.     The  vine  is  grown  in  the  highlands,  and  hemp  and 


THE  MALAGASIES 


461 


Rice-mortar  and  paddle  from  Madagascar. 
Collection. ) 


(Stockholm  Ethnographical 


tobacco  are  cultivated  as  luxuries.     Tobacco  is  seldom  smoked,  and  then  only 

in  water-pipes    of  the  African   kind,  made  of  gourds  grown  into  the  shape  of 

cow-horns,  and    clay — nor    ever    taken    in    snuff,  but   chewed   with   avidity   in 

the  form  of  powder. 
Cattle  are  currency. 

A  bride  is  paid  for  in 

oxen,  and  no  solemnity 

is  complete  without  the 

sacrifice  of  an  ox.     The 

Malagasy  scarcely  ever 

eats    meat     except     on 

festive    occasions  ;    and 

to  eat  calves  is  entirely 

repugnant  to  the  feeling 

of  the    country,    which 

forbids  the  offspring  to 

be     taken      from      the 

mother.      Cattle  and  rice  form  the  chief  source  of  revenue  ;   Mauritius,  Reunion, 

even  Zanzibar  and  places  on  the  East  African  coast,  supply  themselves  with  these 

chiefly  from    Madagascar.       All    money   is   invested    in    cattle,  and    the    greatest 

ambition  of  a  poor  man 
is  to  acquire  at  least  two 
or  three  beasts.  In  the 
highlands  milk  is  a  chief 
article  of  food,  and  the 
rich  Hovas  have  dairy- 
farms  with  five  to  eight 
hundred  head  of  cattle 
on  them.  Some  beasts 
are  also  stall-fed,  in  stalls 

h"^(ill^te'^')l''KtK^Sh.  —    --<?>i'^*^^  /^K     '^^^^   underground.       Al- 

^W^^^BamWM^T^S^r^^''  JfflW"'^    though  cattle  are  placed 

^^     ^'^■™Mr,J'1^^^^  .i^^Mf^'       under    the    protection    of 

^JuKBiw^^^^^^Siw'^   '      ^^^    public,    and    among 
^  ^^rn  iI'Ml'Ifflilllfilllw'    "         ^^^  independent  tribes  to 
'   7;  lift  I  Wm' n'*'  1 '  steal    them    is   a   capital 

"'  ''       ''  offence,    cattle -lifting    is 

frequent.  The  Malagasy 
ox  resembles  the  East 
African.  Sheep  and  goats  are  found  only  in  the  interior ;  pigs,  which  are  now 
universal,  were  first  introduced  by  the  English  under  Radama  I.  Fowls  are  not 
found  in  every  village  ;  geese,  ducks,  and  turkeys  exist  only  among  the  Hovas. 
Dogs  are  either  of  the  East  African  jackal -like  breed  or  European  mongrels.. 
Cats  are  held  by  all  Malagasies  to  be  animals  of  evil  omen. 

The  full  development  of  labour  among  the  free  population  is  checked  by  the 
existence  of  slavery.  Where  there  is  occasion  for  operations  on  a  large  scale, 
as  in  the  rice  districts  in  the  north  of  the  Sakalava  country,  slaves  are  kept. 
Anything  like  industrial  activity  (with  the  exception  of  the  preparation  and  working 


Madagascar  hubble-bubble,  in  the  African  style- 
( Berlin  Museum.) 


-one-fifth  real  size. 


462 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


of  iron,  in  parts  where  the  raw  material  is  plentiful),  is  confined  to  the  women. 
The  Hovas  like  to  imitate  European  patterns,  but  have  little  faculty  of  original 
invention.     Among  that  part  of  the  population  with  which  foreigners  come  little 


Drawing  of  a  herd  of  cattle,  on  the  bamboo  drinking-cup  represented  on  opposite  page.      (Berlin  Museum.) 

into    contact   the   women's    favourite   occupation    is   the    weaving    rafia-'vUox^  into 
lantbas.      You   may  see  the  looms  set  up  day  after  day  under  great  sheds  ;  and 


Woven  pouch  from  Madagascar — one-half  real  size.     (Berlin  Museum. ) 

the  completion  of  a  single  piece  of  this  durable  fabric  often  takes  a  month.  The 
larger  vessels  of  clay,  especially  the  water-pots,  of  which  one  or  two  stand  in 
fixed  places  in  every  hut,  resemble  those  of  East  Africa  in  their  form  and  method 
of  burning,  while  the  pots  with  covers  used  for  cooking  rice  are  Malayan  style. 
The  dishes  and   bottles  of  fine  red   clay  remind   one  of  Moorish  pottery.      The 


THE  MALAGASIES 


463 


platting  of  mats,  baskets,  and  bags,  sometimes  roughly  shaped  like  animals, 
sometimes  bottle-shaped,  is  the  women's  work.  The  pattern  of  the  corn-baskets 
and  mats,  square  and  slightly  bent  up  at  the  corners,  is  very  pretty.  The  rush- 
baskets  of  Madagascar  hold  water,  and  keep  it  cool  by  evaporation. 

Owing  to  the  bad  state  of  the  roads  and  the  msecurity  of  communications, 
the  internal  trade  is  insignificant ;  and 
even  although  foreign  trade  has  gradu- 
ally become  of  the  first  importance  to 
the  Hova  kingdom,  all  matters  con- 
nected with  business  are  in  a  wretched 
state.  High  import  duties,  from  which 
the  Hovas  defray  the  greater  part  of 
their  state-expenditure,  are  a  burden 
on  trade  ;  though  they  have  their  use, 
since  brandy  is  one  of  the  articles 
subject  to  them. 

Christianity  in  Madagascar  had  to 
make  terms  with  polygamy,  which  was 
fostered  by  the  raids  of  the  Hovas. 
These  have  long  ceased  to  be  success- 
ful, and  polygamy  has  been  officially 
suppressed.  The  first  wife  is  every- 
where the  mistress  of  the  house,  and 
her  children  take  precedence.  The 
huts  of  the  separate  Vadikely,  or  bye- 
wives,  lie  grouped  round  the  larger  hut 
of  the  husband,  who  lives  in  this  with 
his  head-wife,  or  Vadi-be.  She  is  seldom 
the  prettiest  of  the  wives,  but  is  sure  to 
be  the  richest  and  most  equal  in  rank 
to  the  husband.  Betrothal  and  mar- 
riage customs  remind  us  of  those  in 
force  among  the  Malays.  Traces  of 
wife-purchase  appear  in  the  custom  of 
not  holding  a  marriage  to  be  concluded 


Hova  drinking-cups  of  bamboo,  used  also  for  tobacco- 
boxes— one-half  real  size.      (Berlin  Museum. ) 


until  the  bride's  parents  have  received  a  present  from  the  bridegroom.  In  former 
times  this  used  to  be  a  rump  of  beef  In  general,  the  woman's  position  is  not 
unduly  inferior  to  that  of  the  man.  Great  liberty  is  allowed  to  unmarried  women. 
The  heathen  tribes  like  to  see  a  young  wife  bring  pre-nuptial  children  with  her. 
In  the  morality  of  the  half-civilized  Christian  Hovas  hypocrisy  plays  an  important 
part ;  semi-cultivation  has  had  a  detrimental  effect  here  in  all  directions,  accom- 
panied as  it  has  been  by  a  diminution  in  thrift  and  an  excessive  indulgence  in 

spirituous  drinks. 

Among  the  most  notable  indications  of  Malayan  affinities  are  exogamy  and 
mother-right.  Preference  of  the  female  line  in  inheritance,  equivalence  m  the  degree 
of  kindred  of  father  and  father's  brother,  mother  and  mother's  sister,  and  the  fact  that 
marriage  between  cousins  \s  fadi,  or  forbidden,  to  the  fifth  degree,  are  peculiarities 
quite  diverse  from  African  usage.     Even  the  prominent  share  taken  by  women  in 


464 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


politics  is  primarily  due  to  the  great  importance  attached  to  direct  descent  in 
blood.  The  custom  by  which  the  first  minister  is  the  queen's  consort,  has  fortified 
their  position  until  three  successive  female  reigns  have  gone  far  to  give  the  Hova 
constitution  the  appearance  of  a  gynecocracy.  Regard  for  posterity,  especially 
male  posterity,  has  not  succeeded  in  eradicating  the  horrible  practice  of  infanticide. 
The  greatest  respect  is  shown  to  parents  by  their  children,  very  much  owing  to 
the  honour  paid  to  age  as  such.      For  instance,  if  two  slaves  of  different  ages  have 


Antananarivo,  the  Hova  capital.     (From  a  photograph. ) 


a   load  to   carry,   the   younger  will,  if  possible,  take   it   all.      Blood   brotherhood, 
contracted  over  a  slaughtered  ox,  recalls  an  African  custom. 

Society  among  the  Hovas  falls  under  thrfee  classes  ;  the  nobles  {Andrian),  the 
citizens  {Hova),  and  the  slaves  {Andevo  or  Ampory).  The  nobility  consists  mostly 
of  descendants  of  former  chiefs.  It  is  the  most  distinguished  class,  but  not  the 
richest ;  you  may  even  hear  people  say  "  poor  as  a  lord."  The  government  is  free 
to  employ  all  subjects  as  it  pleases  ;  service  is  claimed  from  rich  and  poor,  young 
and  old.  Services  rendered  to  the  government  are  accordingly,  as  might  be 
expected,  gratuitous  ;  and  thence  follows  important  results  on  the  power  of  the 
government,  as  well  as  the  fact  that  the  ministers  are  the  chief  traders  in  the 
country.  In  this  co^^/^-system  too,  we  may  find  a  reason  for  the  backward  condi- 
tion of  the  people,  seeing  that  it  is  just  those  of  most  ability  who  lose  most  of  the 


THE  MALAGASIES 


46s 


pleasure  of  enjoying  the  fruits  of  their  own  work.  By  the  introduction  of  wage- 
paid  labour  the  Europeans  have  acted  beneficially  on  the  social  and  economic 
condition  of  the  Hovas.  An  official  nobility,  ranking  between  the  citizens  and 
the  nobles  by  birth,  has  since  the  da,ys  of  Radama  I.  been  created  by  the  bestowal 
of  honours  upon  servants  of  the  state.  The  freemen  are  divided  into  numerous 
clans,  which,  as  a  rule,  do  not  intermarry.  They  fall  also  into  the  two  classes  of 
persons  liable  to  military  service,  and  simple  citizens. 

Of  slaves  three  kinds  are  distinguished  ;    Tsatsa-Hova,  Andevo,  and  Mozambik. 
The  first  are  of  the  same  blood  as  the  Hovas,  but  have  been  reduced  to  slavery 


Rainitnalavona  and  Rainilaiarivona,  two  Prime  Ministers  of  Radama  II.      (After  Ellis. ) 

as  a  punishment  for  crimes  committed  by  themselves,  their  fathers,  or  their 
brothers.  The  Andevo,  who  form  the  most  numerous  class,  are  recruited  chiefly 
from  prisoners  of  war  ;  they  are  slaves  in  the  strictest  sense.  As  a  rule  they  are 
rather  darker  than  the  Hovas  ;  but  in  other  respects  their  appearance  varies  very 
much,  as  might  be  expected  from  their  various  origin.  The  third  class  are 
Africans,  imported  by  Arabs  mostly  from  the  Mozambique  coast.  Since  1877 
the  slaves  have  been  nominally  free  in  all  parts  of  the  island  over  which  the  Hova 
power  extends.  The  slaves  hold  a  somewhat  lower  position  than  other  members 
of  the  family  ;  but  may,  by  the  goodwill  of  their  masters,  lead  an  existence  which 
many  a  free  man  would  envy.  Thus  the  worst  side  of  slavery  is  the  bad  influence 
which  it  exercises  over  labour  in  general ;  people  have  got  used  to  letting  the 
smallest  jobs  be  done  by  slaves. 

The  Constitutions  of  Madagascar  were  originally  of  a  very  elementary  nature. 

2  H 


466  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

The  powerlessness  of  so-called  "  kings  "  often  presented  a  comical  contrast  to  the 
pretensions  which  interested  Europeans  tried  to  force  upon  them.  But  though 
the  Hovas  have  raised  themselves  above  this  low  political  level,  we  must  not  over- 
estimate their  achievements  as  founders  of  an  empire.  Large  as  their  empire  is, 
it  rests  upon  a  force  of  widely-scattered  garrisons  and  civil  officials,  so  that  its 
very  size  is  unfavourable  to  cohesion.  The  whole  north  and  west,  save  for  a  few 
trading-centres  on  the  coast,  is  still  independent ;  the  south  and  south-east  not 
much  less  so.  In  order  to  understand  the  effects  from  an  ethnographic  point  of 
view  of  the  extension  of  the  Hova  conquest,  we  must  consider  how  long  the 
struggle  lasted,  and  with  what  energy  and  cruelty  it  was  conducted.  The  only 
thing  aimed  at  was  to  injure  their  opponents,  and  for  this  all  means  were  thought 
allowable.  If  we  further  remember  their  custom  of  exporting  as  slaves  all  the 
able-bodied  members  of  the  defeated  side,  and,  as  already  mentioned,  the  wide 
distribution  of  garrisons  and  officials,  what  else  could  we  expect  as  the  result  of 
their  "  forward  ''  policy  than  a  general  patchwork  of  the  population  ?  But  in  this 
fermenting  mass  the  Hova  is  the  leaven  ;  though  outside  of  the  narrow  limits  of 
his  original  territory,  even  he  regards  himself  as  a  foreigner. 

Except  the  Hovas  and  the  Betsileos,  who  must  be  treated  as  practically 
identical,  and  who  form  the  nucleus  of  the  Hova  kingdom  in  the  interior,  the 
races  of  the  west  coast  are  comprised  under  the  name  of  the  most  powerful  among 
them  as  the  Betsimisaraka.  These  with  the  Betanimenas  inland,  and  the  Tanalas, 
Tankays,  and  Sihanakas,  who  inhabit  the  forest-belt  between  the  coast  and  the 
interior,  are  like  the  Hovas  ;  while,  to  north  and  south,  the  Taimoro,  Taifasy, 
Taisaka,  Tanosy,  and  Tandroy  tribes  have  a  darker  skin  and  less  stiff  hair.  Even 
among  the  Betsimisarakas  we  find  persons  with  dark  skin  and  curly  hair.  At  one 
time  the  Sakalavas,  reaching  north  and  south  on  the  west  side,  were  limited  only 
on  the  south  by  the  kingdom  of  Menabe,  and  on  the  north  by  Imboina,  founded 
some  two  hundred  years  ago  by  Sakalava  chiefs.  Thence  they  held  the  Hovas 
in  subjection  ;  now  it  is  they  who  are  (for  the  most  part  nominally)  subject  to 
the  Hovas. 

The  Hova  monarchy  is  by  no  means  unlimited  ;  least  of  all  is  the  Hova 
sovereign  absolute.  He  is  surrounded  by  a  high  nobility,  to  which  belong  the 
members  of  the  royal  house  and  the  descendants  of  old  families  ;  and  from  which 
are  chosen  the  prince's  companions  and  ministers.  This  body  often  acts  as 
representative  of  the  people  and  organ  of  the  popular  will.  Possibly  in  this 
respect  intercourse  with  Europeans  has  acted  imperceptibly  as  an  incitement, 
which  among  this  easily -swayed  people  would  be  none  the  less  effective  because 
its  origin  was  unobserved  and  its  effects  hard  to  calculate.  If  a  king  rules  with 
a  strong  hand,  and  knows  how  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  people,  the  nobility 
and  the  pdpular  assembly  become  of  small  consequence  ;  but  their  strength  grows 
in  proportion  as  the  sovereign  is  weak  or  unpopular.  But  he  has  the  means  of 
making  his  authority  thoroughly  effective,  for  the  king  is  not  only  the  source  of 
laws,  punishments,  and  honours ;  he  is  also  the,  universal  owner.  All  belongs  to 
him — person,  property,  time,  labour,  talent,  invention.  The  administration  is  carried 
on  even  at  the  present  day  essentially, from  the  point  of  view  of  the  king's  private 
interests  ;  hence-  arise  the  most  senseless  extortions  and  imposts.  All  minerals, 
all  produce  of  wood  or  field  which  is  not  got  with  pick  and  spade,  are  crown 
property,  even  to  the  timber.     The  king  can  forbid  his  subjects  to  leave  the  island 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MALAYS  467 


under  pain  of  death  or  penal  servitude  for  life.  Offences  against  the  state  are 
punished  by  the  conversion  of  the  right  to  the  man's  labour  into  a  right  to  his 
person  ;  that  is,  the  offender  becomes  the  king's  slave  ;  and  this  state-slavery  still 
actually  exists. 

Christianity  has  not  left  much  remaining  of  the  sovereign's  status  as  high 
priest ;  ^  indeed  the  priests  appear  to  rank  far  below  the  higher  court  officials. 
But  remains  of  the  old  belief  exist  among  the  masses,  who  regard  the  king  as  a 
great  magician.  The  people  have,  as  formerly  with  idols  and  their  bearers,  to 
keep  away  from  everything  that  has  been  in  contact  with  the  king  and  his  house. 
When  the  king  is  in  mourning  every  Hova  shaves  his  head.  The  method  of 
taking  an  oath  is  akin  to  an  ordeal  ;  the  person  swearing  must  sip  a  magic-drink, 
which,  when  the  oath  of  allegiance  is  taken,  must  have  stood  upon  a  hump  of 
lead,  a  box  of  earth,  and  a  gun-wad.  The  terrible  poison-ordeal,  which  as  tangena 
among  the  Hovas  and  kizumba  among  the  Sakalavas  has  played  so  destructive  a 
part,  is  not  yet  extinct.  The  pomp  of  the  court  is  in  many  respects  only  an 
imitation  of  European  fashions,  as  may  be  seen  in  Ellis's  picture  of  the  coronation 
of  Radama  II. 

The  laws  of  the  Hovas  are  promulgated  afresh  by  every  king  on  his  accession. 
They  number  at  present  about  sixty.  New  ordinances  are  announced  in  the 
public  market-place.  For  grave  crimes  various  forms  of  capital  punishment,  and 
slavery,  are  prescribed  ;  the  wives,  children,  slaves,  and  flocks  of  the  criminal  are 
confiscated  and  sold,  if  not  redeemed  by  his  relatives. 

The  Hovas  have  become  great  by  the  sword,  and  hold  their  power  thereby. 
The  present  dynasty  has  something  military  about  it,  translated  into  a  Malagasy 
form.  All  persons  able  to  bear  arms  are  liable  to  serve,  and  the  garrisons  are 
formed  of  a  portion  selected  at  pleasure.  These  soldiers,  like  all  other  servants 
of  the  state,  receive  no  pay,  so  that  war  is  a  main  object  with  them  ;  and  of  all 
things  they  long  for  a  good  booty  in  cattle  and  young  slaves. 


§  21.  THE    RELIGION    OF    THE    MALAYS 

Natural  religion  or  ancestor  worship  ?— Predominance  of  the  latter— So-called  fetish  images— Animistic  belief 
of  the  Negritos  and  proofs  of  its  high  antiquity— Complicated  doctrine  of  the  soul— Cult  of  skulls  and 
bones— Veneration  of  old  pots— Tree  worship— Veneration  of  animals— Tiger  superstitions— Plurality  of 
spirits  good  and  bad— Visible  and  invisible  spirits— Amulets  and  relics— The  Gangkan  religion  of  the 
Alfurs— Malay  theology— Deification  of  men— Indistinct  idea  of  the  supreme  being— -5a/a?-a^«/-«—Sivaitic 
and  Buddhist  substratum— jTo/i'^-The  war  god— The  spirit  of  the  sea— Sun  and  moon— Spirit  of  the 
earthquake— Mythologic  legends— Notions  of  the  next  world— The  priesthood,  magicians,  priestesses- 
Religion  and  imposture — The  places  of  worship. 

Religious  veneration  of  ancestors  and  a  lively  faith  in  higher  spirits,  as  well  as 
a  countless  number  of  a  lower  class,  added  to  magic  of  many  kinds  and 
superstition  in  many  forms,  form  the  kernel  of  the  oldest  religious  ideas 
among    the    Malays.       Natural    curiosities    do    not    escape    the    notice    of    the 

'  [That  some  traces  of  it  remain  appears  in  a  letter  from  a  missionary's  wife,  published  in  the  Daily  News 
of  4th  December  1894,  just  before  the  last  French  invasion,  where  the  writer  mentions  that  "  last  Sunday 
morning,  at  the  Palace  Church,  the  Queen  herself  got  up  and  addressed  those  assembled— her  courtiers, 
soldiers,  etc. — and  led  them  in  earnest  prayer."] 


468 


THE  HISTORY  OF  AfANKIND 


Malay,  but  his  observations  only  serve  to  people  Nature  with  spirits  pro- 
ceeding from  his  animistic  cult,  and  to  procure  amulets  or  fetishes  in  objects 
arousing  veneration  or  fear.  Every  object  found  in  a  place  where  it  would 
not  have  been  expected  becomes  an  amulet ;  the  hunter  prays  to  a  stone  in  the 
road,  "  Help  me  to  catch  pheasants  to-day,"  and  if  his  prayer  is  heard  the  stone 
becomes  a  fetish  to  him  and  all  his  village.  Any  stone  or  object  like  a  stone 
which  is  found  in  the  entrails  of  fish,  birds,  buffaloes,  or  men,  any  resinous  growth 
on  a  tree,  any  shell  or  root,  in  short,  anything  striking  or  peculiar,  is  made  into  a 
fetish.  The  demand  ever  new,  ever  active,  sharpens  the  eye,  nor  are  portable 
objects  only  considered  ;  mountains  become  dragons,  and  monsters  solitary  rocks, 
and  all  mountain -tops  are  the  places  where  spirits  dwell  ;  in  the  craters  of 
volcanoes  the  penalties  of  hell  are  carried  out.  We  are  told  that  in  Celebes 
mountain  heights  formerly  used  for  human  sacrifices  are  specially  esteemed. 
Forests  are  regarded  as  the  seats  of  evil  spirits  ;  when  a  clearing  is  made  the 
last  tree  is  left  standing.  In  reaping,  a  patch  of  rice  which,  perhaps,  has  been 
sown  on  purpose,  is  allowed  to  remain  because  it  does  not  do  to  drive  the  spirits 
to  extremities.  In  Celebes  terrible  tales  are  in  circulation 
about  gigantic  serpents  which  inhabit  the  peculiarly-shaped 
summit  of  -Sinalu,  while  in  the  north  of  that  island  every 
cave  passes  as  the  abode  of  one  spirit  in  connection  with 
which  we  may  think  of  the  use  of  caves,  mountains,  and 
forests,  as  a  place  of  burial. 

Races  which  otherwise  have  no  knowledge  of  idols  erect 
stone  or  wooden  monuments  for  the  souls  of  ancestors. 
Before  these  clumsy  figures  oaths  are  administered  and 
sacred  operations  performed,  while  offerings  are  laid  in 
their  navels.  The  Pangulu-Balang,  the  stone  image  of 
the  Battaks,  has  no  doubt  often  long  ceased  to  be  an 
ancestral  image  so  far  as  its  worshippers  are  conscious, 
for  with  the  growth  of  the  commune  it  became  the  tutelary 
spirit  of  the  whole  kampong.  Although  the  soul  immedi- 
ately after  death  came  back  and  dwelt  as  tutelary  spirit 
in  a  place  where  no  one  was  allowed  to  sleep  according 
to  the  view  held  in  Ternate,  later  on  it  retires  with  other 
souls  into  the  spirit-house  ;  then  if  the  old  images  leave 
prayers  unfulfilled  they  can  readily  be  replaced  by  new 
igorrote  ancestral  image— one-  ones,  though   at   the   Same   time   they   are   not  destroyed. 

twelfth    real    size.       {From    a  i  •  i  i  r  •  ■  i  i 

Dr.  Meyer's  Collection.)  Accordmg  to  the  degree  of  veneration  a-ssigned  to  them, 
they  receive  offerings  monthly  or  annually,  in  the  latter 
case  with  great  ceremonies.  It  is  only  on  this  day  that  they  will  answer 
prayers,  for  the  rest  of  the  year  they  may  be  ignored.  Graves  count  uni- 
versally as  holy  places,  they  are  avoided  since  it  is  unlucky  to  step  on  them, 
and  revisited  in  order  that  the  spirits  hovering  around  may  be  implored  to  bring 
luck.  In  the  whole  district  of  Minnahassa  the  only  objects  of  a  monumental 
kind  are  stone  coffins  with  richly  sculptured  lids. 

If  we  inquire  into  the  origin  of  the  Malay  idols  or  fetishes  we  usually  come 
upon  these  ancestral  images.  The  Igorrotes  of  Northern  Luzon  make  no 
representation  of  their  gods,  but  even  they  draw  a  couple  of  roughly  designed 


THE  RELIGION   OF  THE   MALAYS  469 


human  figures  in  front  of  their  granaries  to  represent  two  famous  ancestors,  and 
to  them  they  confide  the  protection  of  their  rites.  In  front  of  many  huts  in 
Central  Luzon,  Hans  Meyer  saw  a  little  pot  with  food  set  out,  and  often  also  a 
little  bench  for  the  anitos  to  rest  on. 

Among  the  Battaks  these  idols  are  made  of  a  soft  stone,  and  often  exhibit  a 
rudely  worked  head  terminating  in  an  irregular  pointed  base  a  foot  long.  If 
the  Pangulu-Balang  is  wanted  to  be  especially  powerful  the  Guru  bores  a  hole  in 
the  lower  pointed  end,  fills  it  with  a  magic  broth  which  he  has  concocted  out  of 
the  entrails  and  the  nose,  eyes,  lips,  and  ears  of  a  fallen  warrior,  and  carefully 
closes  it  up  again  ;  in  this  way  the  Pangulu-Balang  gets  a  soul.  We  may  see  in 
this  a  survival  of  human  sacrifices.  These  images  are  found  in  the  houses  of 
Mussulmans  no  less  than  among  the  heathen.  Carved  sticks  with  figures  of 
animals  twined  round  them  serve  the  Battaks  as  standards  in  war  and  for  driving 
away  diseases.  If  you  listen  closely  you  will  be  able  to  distinguish  the  humming 
voice  of  the  soul  within  the  stick. 

What  little  we  know  about  the  religion  of  the  Negritos  is  also  referable  only 
to  the  belief  in  souls  ;  they  do  not  like  to  leave  the  wild  places  where  the  souls  of 
their  forefathers  dwell.  They  betray  a  great  dread  of  the  spot  where  one  of  them 
has  died.  After  they  have  covered  the  corpse  lightly  over  and  blocked  the 
approaches  to  the  place  of  burial,  they  leave  the  place  and  communicate  the 
fact  to  the  neighbourhood.  Any  one  who  ventures  to  tread  the  forbidden  spot 
is  punished  with  death.  The  Lubus,  who  are  at  a  similarly  low  stage,  hear  the 
spirit  depart  at  death  with  a  soft  hissing  noise  ;  if  any  one  departs  without  this 
sound  his  spirit  does  not  survive  him.  Among  the  Philippine  tribes  ancestral 
spirits  proceed  from  the  souls  of  grandfathers,  and  while  most  anitos  are  harmless, 
that  of  the  village  chief  is  dreaded. 

The  entire  complicated  psychology  of  the  Malays  may  perhaps  be  regarded 
as  produced  by  a  reaction  from  their  ancestor -worship.  The  tendency  to 
multiply  spirits,  which  ascribes  to  the  man  three  or  seven  souls,  partly  indwelling, 
partly  external,  but  in  connection  with  the  inner  life  of  the  soul,  must  be  based 
on  the  need  for  linking  with  his  soul  as  many  things  as  possible.  When  we  hear 
that  wicked  souls  require  their  form  to  be  seven  times  destroyed  before  they  can 
be  at  rest,  we  are  in  presence  of  an  obvious  misunderstanding  of  the  wanderings 
of  souls.  People  dread  the  wandering  soul  of  the  sleeper  no  less  than  the 
liberated  soul  of  the  dead  ;  and  to  step  over  a  sleeping  man,  or  even  to  wake 
him  abruptly,  passes  for  a  serious  injury. 

Veneration  of  skulls,  together  with  head-hunting,  has  a  close  connection  with 
ancestor-worship.  The  treatment  of  the  heads  often  has  at  its  foundation  the 
idea  of  acquiring  a  spirit  for  the  tribe.  For  this  cause  the  Sea-Dyaks  of  Brunei, 
during  months  on  end,  devote  special  attention  to  the  heads,  speaking  to  them  in 
endearing  terms,  and  giving  them  the  tit-bits  at  every  meal,  besides  jzW/^-leaves, 
betel-nut,  and  even,  according  to  Veth,  cigars.  The  skulls  are  painted  in  red 
and  white  stripes,  or  blacked  with  antimony,  often,  too,  covered  with  tinfoil,  and 
the  eyeholes  filled  with  shells.  Among  some  tribes  these  trophies  are  the 
property  of  the  whole  village.  The  practice  of  treasuring  the  skulls  of  beasts, 
especially  of  those  taken  in  the  chase,  occurs  in  company  with  the  cult  of 
human  skulls,  among  the  Mussulmans  of  Java  no  less  than  among  the  pagans  of 
Formosa.      On  the  Negrito  huts  of  Luzon  the  lower  jaws  of  pigs  may  be  seen 


470 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


nailed  up,  and  on  the  outer  walls  of  those  of  the   Igorrotes,  the  skulls  of  pigs, 
buffaloes,  and  dogs. 

All  Dyaks  are  fond  of  setting  up  old  jars,  called  blanga  or  iempajang,  in 
their  houses  as  the  most  honoured  form  of  decoration.  No  doubt  they  were  once 
reliquaries,  and  thus  esteemed  as  the  abode  of  a  spirit.  The  custom  reminds  us 
of  the  Buddhist  veneration  of  cups  and  urns,  and  of  the  curious  Japanese  super- 
stition, of  holding  in  high  honour  pots  which  have  grown  to  rocks  at  the 
bottom  of  the  sea.     The  pots  and  basins  in  the  house  of  a  chief  in  South-east 

Borneo  were  worth  at  least  15,000 
guilders,  or  £i2<iO;  the  most  costly 
were  buried  in  the  wilderness,  in  a  spot 
known  only  to  the  owner.  The  vessels 
— green,  blue,  or  brown — with  figures 
of  lizards  or  snakes,  imported  from 
China,  are  valued  at  1000  to  3000 
guilders.  A  new  pot  is  dedicated  with 
dances,  and  the  sacrifice  of  an  animal. 
In  the  Timor  group  the  people  of 
Ombai  esteem  metal  vessels  highly ; 
the  copper  mokkos  being  valued  up  to 
1000  guilders,  and  the  differences  in 
value  depending  on  marks  known  only 
to  the  natives.  The  vessels  are  some- 
what in  the  shape  of  a  stove,  and  are 
used  as  musical  instruments  on  cere- 
monial occasions,  being  beaten  by  the 
hand  on  the  firmly  fixed  lid.  Some 
are  pinched  in  at  half  their  height 
(which  is  from  one  to  two  feet),  and 
have  handles.  They  consist  of  several 
pieces,  on  which  signs  and  figures  are 
embossed  ;  very  old  ones  with  cracks 
are  just  those  most  highly  valued.  In 
Ke  and  other  islands,  coarse  Chinese 
porcelain  cups  count  as  the  most 
precious  family  possessions,  and  are  found  in  old  graves.  Every  blanga  has 
its  pedigree.  According  to  a  legend  from  Banjermassing,  Ratu  Champa, 
who  came  from  heaven  and  descended  at  Madjapahit  in  Java,  caused  these 
vessels  to  be  made  of  the  clay  which  remained  over  from  the  making  of 
the  sun,  moon,  and  stars.  From  other  versions  we  may  conclude  that  the 
maker  of  the  sacred  vessels  is  none  other  than  Mahatara,  the  Almighty.  Hence 
they  are  propitious  for  the  house  where  they  are  kept,  and  for  their  possessors ; 
and  here  is  the  connection  with  the  sacredness  of  the  earth  and  of  stones. 
We  shall  remember  the  sacred  coin-stones  of  the  Melanesians.  Also  they  are 
protective  against  illnesses.  Pots  in  which  cannibal  dishes  have  been  dressed 
are  kept  as  mementos,  and  also  those  which  have  received  the  pieces  of  putrefying 
corpses.      In  the  Mariannes  pots  occur  as  the  abodes  of  departed  spirits. 

Tree   worship   is  deeply   rooted    in    the    mythology    or    cosmogony    of    the 


Sacred  jar,  probably  from  Borneo — one-sixth  real  size. 
(Leyden  Museum.) 


THE  RELIGION  OF   THE  MALAYS  471 


Malays,  and  therewith  a  veneration  and  awe  of  any  tree  that  is  in  any  way  out 
of  the  common.  On  giant  trees,  or  such  as  have  got  twined  together,  or  shelter 
white  ants'  nests,  one  is  sure  to  find  a  little  shrine  in  which  offerings  are  brought 
to  the  spirit.  Stones  are  flung  at  an  ill-shapen  tree,  or  rather  at  its  evil  spirit. 
Plants  and  flowers  are  brought  as  offerings  ;  while  Hibiscus  rosea  and  Dracmna 
terminalis  are  themselves  revered  as  good  spirits,  and  made  of  use  against  evil 
ones.  Roots  which  good  spirits  indicate  to  magicians,  afford  them  power 
against  evil  spirits.  The  Rirong  palm  is  planted  on  graves,  and  at  the  corner- 
posts  of  newly-built  houses.  In  the  paddy-fields  offerings  are  made  to  the 
goddess  of  festivity;  and  the  rice  itself  is  addressed  as  though  it  were  an 
animated  being.  The  development  is 
accompanied  with  usages  suggesting  preg- 
nancy, and  names  of  flattery  are  applied  to 
the  rice  when  reaped,  that  it  may  keep  well, 
and,  if  sown,  bring  forth  abundant  fruit.  In 
the  Sulu  Archipelago  the  champai-tree,  a 
kind  of  michelia,  sheds  its  abundant  white 
blooms  almost  all  through  the  year  upon 
the  graves.  A  special  cycle  of  legends  is 
attached  to  the  durian-tree  ;  in  some  districts 

of    the    east    it    is    crown    property,    and    rights  Wax  figure  of  buffalo  ;   perhaps  an  amulet  of  the 

of  possession  are  expressed  by  the  planting  coiiectio^r^ '''''^ ''^^' ^''^'  ('^™'"°""- ^^5'er's 
of  it.       Among    the    Negritos    of    Luzon    a 

fabulous  beast,  with  a  horse's  head,  which  lives  in  trees,  is  venerated  under  the 
name  of  Balendik,  as  a  being  of  a  higher  order.  The  casuarina-tree  (chemara), 
supports  very  various  superstitions.  In  Java  it  is  a  bad  sign  if  a  chemara-tree 
grows  very  well  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  house  ;  but  if  the  tree  dies  without 
any  external  cause,  the  family  will  be  fortunate. 

Animals  play  a  conspicuous  part  in  Malay  superstitions  ;  they  are  closely 
linked  to  the  world  of  men  through  the  belief  in  the  transmission,  by  way  of 
exchange,  of  human  souls  into  beasts.  Men  and  women  who  have  not  the  little 
furrow  below  the  nose  in  the  upper  lip  are  regarded  as  being  qualified  for  trans- 
formation into  tigers.  Metamorphoses  into  vampires  and  pigs  are  also  dreaded. 
It  is  difficult  to  get  at  tigers  who  have  human  souls  ;  they  do  not  like  hunting 
the  tiger,  who  is  spoken  of  as  "  grandfather  "  or  the  "  old  gentleman,"  so  long  as 
he  leaves  the  property  of  his  worshippers  in  peace.  Many  villages  in  Japan  possess 
a  village  tiger,  the  matjan  kainpong,  who  is  fed  on  the  offal  of  slaughtered  beasts, 
keeps  the  premises  clean,  and  is  identified  with  some  deceased  person.  But  if  he 
lets  himself  be  caught  attacking  the  village  cattle  or  even  killing  an  inhabitant,  he 
is  hunted,  and  all  the  more  pitilessly  that  a  weapon  dipped  in  his  blood  becomes 
a  valuable  talisman.  Crocodiles  are  treated  similarly.  Malay  princes  trace  their 
descent  from  them,  and  in  Banca  they  are  even  held  equal  to  the  princes  in  rank. 
For  this  reason,  no  doubt,  the  figure  of  a  crocodile  is  commonly  found  on  Malay 
shields,  in  Talaut  even  in  the  shape  of  the  shields.  The  cases  are  frequent  in 
which  the  soul,  as  a  penalty  for  sins  committed  in  life,  is  separated  from  the 
body  which  rests  in  the  grave,  an  exile  for  a  time  in  an  animal.  Here,  again,  the 
creations  of  Indian  fancy  have  got  a  footing.  There  is  a  creature  called 
bujutronkeh  which  is  a  tiger  in  front,  a  roe  behind  ;  the  tiger  when  he  looks  round 


472  THE    HISTORY  OF    MANKIND 

sees  the  roe,  and  in  tearing  it  tears  his  own  body.  A  man  who  has  in  life  acquired 
property  unjustly  appears  in  this  form.  A  man  who  has  become  rich  by  magical 
means,  after  death  takes  the  shape  of  a  white  cat.  Covetous  men  and  usurers 
also  are  compelled  to  hunt  in  the  form  of  pattering  animals.  There  are  lucky 
and  unlucky  animals,  the  voices  of  which  encourage  or  hinder.  The  Tagals 
ascribe  to  an  unknown  bird,  called  tik-tik,  the  habit  of  calling  the  attention  of  evil 
spirits  to  parturient  women,  who  are  specially  exposed  to  their  attacks. 

Beast  superstitions  take  countless  forms.  In  Nias  pregnant  women  must  not 
pass  by  places  where  a  man  has  been  murdered,  a  bullock  killed,  or  a  dog  burnt 
with  imprecations,  or  some  traces  of  the  dying  man  or  beast  will  be  found  in  the 
child.  For  the  same  reason,  and  others  also,  the  Malays  never  stick  a  pig  nor 
cut  it  up  if  somebody  else  has  not  made  a  preliminary  cut,  nor  will  they  kill  a 
fowl,  and  if  they  have  trodden  on  a  chicken  and  killed  it,  the  faux  pas  must  be 
compensated  for  by  sacrifices.  They  will  not  eat  the  eagle  owl  or  the  child  will 
have  a  voice  like  that  bird.  They  will  not  take  hold  of  a  monkey  or  it  will  have 
eyes  and  forehead  like  a  monkey  ;  they  will  not  eat  of  a  pig  that  has  been  killed 
at  a  funeral  or  it  gets  the  itch.  They  will  not  eat  the  beetle  of  the  era  wood  or 
the  child  will  be  delicate  in  the  chest,  nor  will  they  catch  a  baiwa  fish  or  kill  a 
snake  lest  it  should  have  weak  digestion.  They  will  not  set  fire  to  a  field — rats 
and  mice  might  be  burnt  and  the  child  made  ill ;  and  for  a  similar  reason  they 
will  not  put  salt  in  the  pig's  food.  A  fine  complication  this  !  As  amulets,  both 
for  enchantment  and  against  it,  teeth,  claws — especially  tiger  claws,  and  the  tarsal 
bones  are  popular.  In  Java,  fabulous  stories  are  related  about  a  monkey  with  a 
human  face  that  lives  in  the  forests  to  the  eastward  ;  any  one  'who  catches  him 
will  be  fortunate.  From  the  shape  of  a  pig's  or  fowl's  liver  it  is  sought  to  ascertain 
how  long  one  is  going  to  live.  The  Negritos  of  Luzon  make  prayers  to  a  large 
serpent  for  good  places  to  get  yam  and  honey,  and  the  Pampangos  have  snake 
enchanters  after  the  Indian  fashion. 

Our  limited  knowledge  of  the  Malayan  spirit-world  does  not  allow  us  to 
progress  very  far  towards  a  classification  of  the  countless  spirits.  In  Halmahera, 
a  prince  of  spirits  is  Gwusuong  or  Pwusuong,  the  lord  of  all  the  Jinn,  who  dwells 
unapproachable  by  men  in  Waurao  ;  in  Ternate,  the  greatest  of  the  Wongis, 
Jo-Durian.  It  is,  however,  not  certain  whether  the  same  gradation  is  everywhere 
in  force  as  among  the  Battaks,  where  the  great  spirits  or  Sombaons  join  on  to 
the  gods.  These  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  souls  of  the  departed, 
they  are  nature  spirits  with  a  limited  circle  of  operations  ;  spirits  of  the  mountain, 
forest,  and  sea.  Wherever  Mussulman  influence  reaches,  the  notion  of  Jinn  has 
covered  all  degrees  and  kinds  of  spirits  ;  it  is  the  fact  that  these  races  treat  their 
spirits  very  differently.  The  Battak  thinks  that  he  can  settle  with  the  inferior 
crowd  merely  by  dint  of  incantations  and  magic  formulae.  But  since  these  spirits 
are  by  far  the  most  numerous,  magic  and  incantations  flourish  to  a  high  degree 
and  serve  to  maintain  an  exclusive  caste  of  gurus,  the  master  wizards  and  witch- 
doctors. 

The  multiplicity  of  spirits  gives  individual  romances  to  religion,  according  as 
one  or  another  spirit  power  comes  to  the  front.  The  roots  of  these  conceptions 
are,  however,  few,  the  multiplicity  lies  not  in  the  system  but  in  a  development  of 
the  two  or  three  fundamental  ideas.  But  of  these  the  higher  are  not  accessible  to 
the  mass  of  the  people,  who  look  upon  the  spirits  whereon  their  hopes  or  fears  are 


THE  RELIGION  OF   THE  MALAYS 


473- 


based  not  as  at  a  supra-sensual  height  but  in  a  confidential  proximity.  Good 
and  evil  spirits  are  regarded  by  the  Malay  as  belonging  to  his  own  circle  of  exist- 
ence, since  he  recognises  in  their  activity  no  extraordinary  intrusion  of  a  foreign 
world  into  his  own. 

If  we  are  to  classify  the  spirits  according  to  their  operations,  the  Sanggiang  of 
the  Dyaks,  the  Yang  of  the  Javanese,  the  Wong  of  the  Moluccas  are  to  be  noticed 
as  good  spirits  in  so  far  as  they  either  do  good  themselves  or  can  be  moved  by 
sacrifices  to  oppose  evil  spirits.  To  this  class  belong  all  tutelary  spirits  in  amulets 
and  sacred  trinkets.  In  Java  every  paddy-field  possesses  its  spirit,  nor  will  any 
man  readily  venture  to  sow  or  reap  before  a  priest  has  offered  gifts.  Fortunately, 
it  is  not  a  very  difficult  task  to  obtain  a  tutelary  spirit.  If  a  man  has  reason  to 
suspect  a  bagan  in   anything,  he   brings   it  to   the  guru,  who  goes  with  it  to  the 


Talisman  from  North  Borneo  and  ancestral  image  from  Nias.      (Dresden  Museum. ) 

sacred  place  of  the  village  where  the  Pangulu-balang  stands,  takes  a  sufficient 
meal,  and  allows  the  spirit  to  enter  into  the  object.  There  is  also  an  enchantment 
juice  which,  when  dropped  into  the  eyes,  causes  spirits  to  be  seen  ;  lemon  juice 
with  ginger  and  pepper  is  an  important  component  of  it. 

While  the  mass  of  souls  become  good  spirits,  those  of  the  unburied,  or  of 
persons  who  have  died  abroad  or  by  a  violent  death,  turn  to  evil  spirits.  These 
get  the  best  offerings,  even  the  harvest  thank-offering  serves  to  propitiate  evil 
spirits.  They  are  much  more  sharply  individualised  than  the  good  ones  ;  the 
inhabitants  of  Java  recognise  an  evil  spirit  of  the  wilderness  whom  they  call  aul. 
Another  one  of  a  strange  deluding  exterior  is  the  bilun-samak,  a  water  spirit  who 
floats  on  the  surface  like  a  large  leaf  or  a  woven  mat,  and  drags  his  victims  below 
Mentak,  on  the  other  hand,  goes  through  the  paddy-fields  in  the  innocent  form  of 
a  little  child  to  bring  disease  upon  the  plants.  Where  a  woman  is  awaiting  her 
time  the  houses  are  carefully  shielded  against  Kuntianak  or  Puntianak,  a  being  ot 
horribly  distorted  appearance,  fires  being  kindled  and  sentinels  with  burning  torches 
posted.      In   the  eastern   islands  the  greater  number  of  evil  spirits  seem  to  be 


474  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

embraced  under  the  notion  of  forest  spirits,  perhaps  in  contrast  to  the  good 
ancestral  spirits  who  live  about  the  villages.  Evil  spirits  shun  the  light,  and  for 
that  reason  arrows  armed  with  wax  tapers  are  shot  upon  their  altars.  To  consecrated 
water,  healing  properties  rather  than  purifying  are  ascribed  ;  ill  luck  attaches  both 
to  things  and  to  men  and  must  be  exorcised  by  a  change  at  least  in  externals. 
For  this  cause  it  does  not  do  to  build  into  a  new  house  material  from  one  that 
has  been  destroyed.  Fancy,  in  its  search  for  support,  fixes  upon  a  thousand 
trivialities  ;  it  holds  a  mirror  before  a  conflagration  that  it  may  be  terrified  at  the 
sight  of  itself.  When  rain  falls  and  stops  suddenly  a  murder  has  been  committed. 
With  unlucky  men  it  is  often  not  enough  to  change  the  name,  they  must  transfix 
a  banana  stem  and  cause  all  the  ceremonials  of  a  funeral  to  be  performed  with  it 
in  their  place  ;  then,  and  not  till  then,  they  can  put  their  ill-luck  underground.  A 
great  part  of  Malayan  festival  rites  have  the  propitiation  of  evil  spirits  for  their 
aim,  the  healing  of  the  sick  is  the  expulsion  of  an  evil  spirit,  and  on  a  journey 
from  the  Tobah  plateau  to  the  lowlands  of  the  coast,  which  teem  with  fever, 
offerings  are  made  to  the  spirit  of  the  ague.  In  the  permanent  places  of  sacrifice 
to  the  evil  spirits,  food  is  set  out  as  in  the  shrines  of  the  souls,  and  the  ghosts  are 
fumigated  away  by  children  with  onions  or  sulphur. 

The  countless  portents  of  death  point  to  a  life  passed  in  a  state  of  fear  ;  to 
these  belong,  among  the  Dyaks,  the  sight  or  the  cry  of  an  owl,  snakes  coming  into 
the  house,  the  falling  of  a  tree  in  front  of  any  one,  a  singing  in  the  left  ear,  but 
most  especially  an  abrupt  change  of  mood. 

Invisible  spirits  fill  up  the  gaps  which  intervene  in  the  substances  of  visible 
things.  To  them  belongs  in  Javanese  superstition  the  great  race  of  the  Jurigs ; 
when  the  other  spirits  have  left  a  spot  unoccupied  you  may  be  certain  of  finding 
Jurigs.  They  become  visible  only  occasionally  as  tigers  or  fiery  serpents,  actually 
they  are  evil  spirits.  A  milder  form  is  found  in  the  Ganderuva  and  Veves,  who 
are  equally  indigenous  to  Java  ;  mischievous  cobolds,  male  and  female,  who 
torment  men  invisibly,  most  commonly  by  throwing  stones,  but  also  by  bespatter- 
ing their  clothes  with  saliva  dyed  red  by  betel-chewing.  Resembling  both  these 
the  Begus  are  conspicuous  among  the  Battaks,  all  the  more  that  their  spirit  world 
is  otherwise  completely  embodied.  They  are  like  a  breath  or  bodiless  air,  to 
them  belong  the  invisible  spirits  of  disease,  the  only  visible  Begu  is  the  dreaded 
Nalalain,  the  spirit  of  strife  and  murder,  who  may  be  seen  creeping  about  in  the 
evening  with  fiery  eyes,  long  red  tongue,  and  claws  on  his  hands.  Apparently 
resembling  him  is  Swangie,  the  most  dreaded  of  the  Burungs  of  Halmahera,  the 
evil  one  who  creeps  on  the  earth.  The  Begus  even  try  to  take  possession  of 
corpses,  and  the  incessant  sword -strokes  of  the  Ulubelang,  or  champions  who 
surround  the  coffin  in  a  funeral  procession,  are  directed  against  them. 

Amulets,  through  their  connection  with  a  political  function,  acquire  a  higher 
religious  importance.  When  possessed  by  ruling  families  they  become  a  kind  of 
regalia,  and  the  veneration  paid  to  them  increases  therewith  to  an  unlimited 
degree.  In  Celebes  one  may  hear  the  title  of  prince  applied  to  little  village 
chiefs,  or  to  members  of  families  that  have  long  ceased  to  rule.  These  people  are 
the  possessors  of  venerated  trinkets  ;  in  a  sacred  house  of  this  kind  a  little  basket 
or  casket  stands  upon  a  table  carefully  covered  with  sarongs,  and  beside  it 
fumigations  are  burnt  and  tapers  are  lighted.  Then  you  will  discover  on  the 
wall  or  on  the  floor  weapons  and  other  bric-a-brac,  and  lastly,  two  or  three  copper 


THE  RELIGION  OF   THE  MALAYS  475 

pots,  one  with  boiled  rice,  another  witli  sirili  leaves,  and  the  apparatus  necessary 
for  chewing  them,  but,  what  is  contained  in  the  basket  or  the  casket  it  will 
assuredly  cause  death  even  to  look  upon. 

In  these  sacred  objects  the  people  take  refuge  in  all  dangers  and  adversities  ; 
fowls,  goats,  buffaloes,  are    offered    to    them,  they  are    sprinkled   with   buffaloes' 
blood  and  drawn  round  in  procession  ;  oaths  sworn  upon  them  have   more  value 
than  when    taken    on    the    Koran.       At    the    same    time    their   requirements    are 
considerable  ;  when   they  are  taken   round,  every  one  who  has   heard  of  it  must 
join  the  train,  whoever  delays  to  do  so  is   punished.      The  penalty  goes   on   the 
principle  of  a  deodand  to  the  owner  of  the  relic.      If  the  opposition  has  taken  the 
form  of  active  hostility,  the  person  concerned  used  in   former  times  to  become  a 
slave  of  the  ornament,  often  with  his  family  and  relations.      A  female  slave  who 
invokes   its  protection   becomes  its   property,  the  former  master  loses   all   rights. 
Land    to  \\'hich    there  is  no   heir  falls  to    the  ornament.      And  what    are   these 
trinkets  ?  amulets  with  the  political  stamp   upon   them,  or,  as  we   may  say,  state 
fetishes.      The  veneration  of  them  comes   down  from   a  time  when   a  number  of 
small  independent  kingdoms  still  existed.      In  many  parts  of  the  archipelago  the 
tale  recurs  of  princes  who  found  an  article  of  gold,  in  Ternate  a  whet-stone,  which, 
being  revered  as  an  amulet,  attracted  so  many  visitors  that  they  passed  it  on  until 
it  came  into  the  hand  of  a  poor  prince  and  multiplied  the  number  of  his  subjects. 
Thus  also,  as  the  tale  extended,  the  first  settlement,  which  contained  an   amulet 
that  it  had  brought  with  it,  retained  its  hegemony  and  its  kingdom  increased. 

This  crude  amulet-religion  takes  on  a  more  refined  form  in  the  west  under 
the  influence  of  foreign  civilization.  Relics,  traditional  possessions,  and  texts  from 
the  Koran,  take  the  place  of  roots  and  stones.  The  best  of  all  are  relics  of 
weapons— especially  when  they  have  given  some  one  his  death  wound,  trinkets, 
precious  stones,  such  as  the  grey  diamonds  of  Matapura,  known  as  "  souls  of 
diamonds,"  especially  when  they  have  formerly  served  a  similar  purpose.  Old 
stone  axes,  so-called  "  thunder-bolts,"  are  distinguished  into  male  and  female,  and 
regarded  as  having  great  magic  powers.  Texts  of  the  Koran  written  on  paper 
afford  protection  against  spirits  and  bring  good  luck;  they  are  rolled  up  and 
carried  on  the  head  or  about  the  body.  Other  texts  quickly  bring  wealth  or 
protect  the  house  against  evil  influences.  Little  models  of  houses,  often  with  a 
serpent  in  the  doorway,  pass  for  "medicine  "  among  the  Dyaks,  and  so,  too,  wooden 
figures  of  crocodiles  and  other  animals.  _ 

Magic  has  assumed  a  scientific  character  in  the  Ngilmu,  which  places  in  the 
hand  of  the  adept  a  weapon  of  unlimited  power.  Ngilmu  is  the  art  of  astrology, 
the  art  of  love  philtres,  the  art  of  growing  rich,  and  stands  towards  rapal  in  the 
position  of  science  to  handicraft  or  theory  to  practice.  In  this  sense  the  Javanese 
are  the  most  science-loving  of  all  people.  Ngilmu  is  in  general  the  art  of  stealing 
with  impunity,  but  it  would  be  rapal  if  a  habitual  thief  put  the  inhabitant  of  a 
house  to  sleep  by  magic.  If  a  rapal  does  no  good  it  is  a  fraud  and  is  flung 
away,  but  the  ngilmu  remains  always  of  value.  The  name  is  applied  also  to 
Mussulman  occult  science,  the  very  highest  of  all  is  taken  from  the  Koran.  The 
man  who  can  say  why  the  breath  is  called  breath,  what  it  is  called  by  day  and  by 
night,  at  expiration  and  at  inspiration,  whither  it  goes  at  death  and  where  it 
remains,  has  acquired  a  share  of  ngilmu.  The  reason  why  it  is  only  taught  to 
particular  trustworthy  persons  is  the  fear  that  if  all  had  learnt  it  it  would   give 


476  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

rise  to  many  misunderstandings.  The  temples  would  fall  to  ruin  and  the  power 
of  the  princes  would  be  shaken. 

Theology  is  neither  so  rich  nor  so  clearly  systematised  as  the  doctrine  of 
spirits  and  ghosts.  The  three  head  gods  Batara-guru,  Gori-pada,  and  Mangala- 
bulan,  exist  for  the  multitude  mainly  in  theory  ;  the  Battaks,  for  example,  dealing  in 
practice  only  with  spirits.  They  appear  in  more  distinct  form  only  where  religion 
assigns  to  them  functions  which  transcend  those  of  the  spirits,  where  thought 
finds  itself  led  in  the  direction  of  cosmogonic  problems,  or  where  the  whole  troop 
of  individual  ghosts  is  no  longer  of  any  avail.  On  specially  important  occasions 
affecting  the  whole  people  there  is  even  capacity  for  prayer  to  the  highest  god, 
the  creator  of  the  universe,  such  as  by  its  earnestness  favourably  impressed  even 
the  Christian  missionaries.  The  name  of  the  supreme  being  occurs  also  in  grave 
oaths.  Islam  has  made  very  little  alteration  in  this  ;  in  the  district  of  Holontalo, 
for  example,  the  prevailing  religion  is  the  Mussulman,  but  the  old  heathen  usages 
and  customs  lie  unaltered  at  its  base.  Just  as  formerly  the  Hindoo  religion 
repressed  the  native  belief  in  the  gods  of  the  house,  the  field,  the  forest,  ancestor 
worship,  the  motherhood  of  earth  and  the  fatherhood  of  the  sun,  so  in  the  later 
centuries  Islam  has  suppressed  the  worship  of  the  sacred  fig-tree  and  of  the 
Brahmanical  gods  and  goddesses,  yet  not  without  absorbing  much  of  the  old 
customs,  so  that  any  attempt  would  be  in  vain  sharply  to  distinguish  the  three 
layers.  The  tutelary  spirits  are  frequently  called  the  returned  souls  of  heroes  or 
ancestors,  and  when  we  find  every  village  in  Timorlaut  worshipping  its  patron 
spirit  in  the  form  of  a  wooden  human  figure  we  are  very  near  to  the  deifying  of 
men.  In  some  historical  cases  the  process  of  deification  is  clearly  enough  to  be 
recognised.  Sir  James  Brooke  freed  the  Dyaks  from  the  oppression  of  the 
Malays,  but  the  Rajah  desired  nothing  for  himself  in  return  for  the  blessings  he  had 
conferred.  What  could  move  him  thereto  unless  he  was  something  more  than  an 
ordinary  man  ?  Wallace  was  pelted  in  out-of-the-way  villages  with  questions 
whether  Brooke  was  not  as  old  as  the  hills,  and  whether  he  was  not  able  to  call 
the  dead  back  to  life. 

The  supreme  being  is  so  far  away  from  the  people  that  they  can  hardly  assign 
a  name  to  him.  A  lower  deity,  or  an  imported  one,  such  as  the  assistant  creator, 
Batara  Guru,  or  wherever  Islam  has  spread,  a  deity  of  a  Mussulman  type,  could 
easily  be  exalted  to  the  vacant  place.  The  names  Lubulangi,  Kabiga,  and 
Malyari,  applied  to  their  supreme  beings  by  the  people  of  Nias,  the  Ilamuts,  and 
the  Zambals  respectively,  remain  unexplained.  Among  the  Ifugaos  of  Luzon, 
Kabigat  appears  as  the  son  of  the  supreme  deity  Kabunian,  from  whose  inter- 
marriage with  his  sisters  mankind  sprang.  Designations  like  "  the  lord  on  high  " 
are  general.  Sexlessness  is  his  attribute  ;  and  the  faithful  maintain  that  his  great 
distance  hinders  him  from  hearing  prayers.  Elsewhere,  among  the  Tagal  tribes 
of  Luzon,  a  goddess  comes  up  as  the  daughter  of  the  supreme  pair  of  deities,  or 
as  the  wife  of  the  chief  god,  in  cases  where  the  chief  god  is  represented  as  married. 
The  Catalangans  even  recognise  two  supreme  couples.  The  deity  of  Halmahera, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  spoken  of  as  a  single  being  ;  he  taught  laws  to  the  wise 
Gusongs,  who  are  called  his  messengers,  and  they  in  turn  taught  their  disciples, 
and  straightway  vanished.  Among  the  Dyaks  there  is  a  supreme  god,  Tupa, 
who  governs  the  thunder  and  lightning  in  heaven,  but  is  not  prayed  to  ;  another, 
Sanggiang  Assai,  metamorphoses  a  woman  into  a  white  rock. 


THE  RELIGION  OF   THE  MALAYS 


477 


Batara  Guru  is  prominent  in  Hindoo-Javanese  inscriptions  with  all  the 
attributes  of  a  god  regarded  as  supreme.  This  pre-eminence  never  interrupts 
the  polytheistic  basis,  but  the  Devas  take  a  place  behind  him.  Next  to  him 
appear  as  the  most  important  gods,  Surya,  the  sun,  and  Kalamerta,  the  god  or 
goddess  of  fertility  and  death.  His  position  as  the  chastising  god,  the  statement 
that  he  appears  on  earth  in  the  devastating  storm,  that  he  fights  with  the  fire, 
bring  into  prominence  his  resemblance  to  the  Hindoo  Siva  ;  but  in  the  Javanese 
travesty  all  his  destructive  tendencies  are  whittled  down  to  the  point  of  insignificance. 
In  other  evidences  of  Javanese  Hindooism  he  takes  rank  behind  the  distant 
universal  god  in  the  position  of  an  intermediary,  in  which  he  completes  the 
creation,  assigns  their  places  to  the  god  of  the  polytheistic  crowd,  and  rules 
them  and  the  earth.  In  this  position  he  is  ancestor  alike  of  the  lower  gods  and 
of  men.  But  the  Dyaks  of  South  Borneo  distinguish  Mahadara  Sangen — the 
ancestor  of  gods — from  Mahadara  Singsang,  the  ancestor  of  men  ;  while  among 
the  Orang  Benua,  the  creation,  even  that  of  mankind,  was  all  seen  to  by  the 
supreme  lord,  who  dwells  out  of  sight  above  the  sky.  Once  on  a  time  he  broke 
the  shell  wherewith  the  earth  was  enclosed,  so  that  the  mighty  hills,  which  now 
hold  the  fabric  together,  rose  from  the  depths  ;  on  it  he  placed  the  first  human 
pair  in  a  frahu,  which  drifted  about  on  the  water  for  a  long  time.  Between 
Pirman  and  human  beings  stand  the  Jinn — the  most  powerful  of  them  the  earth- 
spirit,  Jinn  Boomi  who  sends  sickness.  Subordinate  to  him  are  the  spirits  of  trees, 
rivers,  hills,  etc.  More  recent  researches  have  brought  to  light  the  Sivaitic  basis 
of  Batara  Guru,  and  his  points  of  agreement  with  Buddha,  but  have  at  the  same 
time  kept  firm  hold  of  the  fundamental  Malayan  character  declared  in  his  position 
as  creator  and  maintainer  of  the  world  at  the  head  of  a  few  high  deities.  Imported 
gods  assume  a  national  character  even  where  Indian  traces  are  still  pretty  clear. 
Padi  Allah  and  Nabi  Mohammed,  sprung  from   Islam,  have  joined  their  company. 

A  goddess  appears  in  Borneo  under  the  names  of  Kaloe,  Kalue,  Kloe,  who 
dwells  in  the  nether  world,  and  at  one  time  protects  the  harvest,  at  another  is  of 
mischievous  significance  for  pregnant  women  and  new-born  children.  She  has 
been  compared  with  the  Proserpina  and  Lucina  of  the  ancients.  The  Javanese 
serve  up  offerings  of  food  and  drink  in  the  sacrificial  shrines  to  this  protectress  of 
the  paddy-fields,  adding  thereto  a  mirror,  a  comb,  and  fragrant  oil ;  since  the 
daughter  of  the  gods  has  the  reputation  of  being  vain.  The  Igorrotes  organise 
head-hunts  to  please  her.  The  connection  of  the  feast  of  purification  or  atone- 
ment, with  the  harvest-customs,  looks  as  if  the  powers  invoked  from  below  to 
further  the  increase  are  sent  back  propitiated  to  the  under-world.  The  god  of 
war,  too,  is  brought  into  connection  with  plants.  In  Halmahera  the  oldest  man 
repairs  into  the  forest,  to  a  tree  in  which  a  hole  has  been  bored,  and  summons  the 
spirit  to  mount  upon  a  litter.  Here  food  is  offered  to  him,  while  the  company 
perform  the  war-dance.  Similarly,  in  Ceram,  before  a  war  a  procession  fetches 
"  the  spirit  of  the  sacred  tree  "  from  the  forest,  and  when  the  war  is  ended  bears 
him  solemnly  back.  To  this,  too,  Polynesian  parallels  are  not  wanting,  as  a  refer- 
ence to  p.  326  will  show. 

The  female  spirit  of  the  ocean  rises  pre-eminent  above  the  ordinary  spirits. 
She  rules  not  only  the  sea  but  also  far  inland  the  cliffs  and  the  caves,  Javanese 
legend  makes  her  the  daughter  of  a  ruler  of  Padjajaran  whom  her  father  cursed 
because  she  rejected  all  suitors.     Banished  to  the  south  coast  of  Java  and  attacked 


478  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


by  a  painful  disease,  she  vainly  besought  the  gods  for  help.  Finally  she  prayed 
to  Siva  the  annihilator ;  the  evil  spirits  caught  her  up,  hurled  themselves  with  her 
into  the  sea,  and  the  demons  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  elected  her  their  queen. 
Her  favourite  place  of  residence  when  ashore  is  a  cave  on  the  Oopack  River ;  for 
her  use  also  mirror,  comb,  and  oil  are  set  out.  Her  sister  is  ugly,  deaf  and  dumb, 
albino,  and  was  carried  away  by  traders  from  a  desert  island  to  which  she  had 
been  banished.  Among  the  Battaks  too  there  are  sea  spirits  called  also  Nagas ; 
in  rank  they  stand  on  a  level  with  the  highest  sombaions  and  are  the  children  of 
the  deity.  On  the  Tobah  lake  a  couple  of  these  Nagas  are  highly  revered  by  all 
who  come  there ;  the  male  dwells  near  the  shore,  the  female  in  a  dry  stone  house 
at  the  bottom  in  the  middle  of  the  lake. 

The  sun  and  the  moon  appear  as  great  divinities,  the  stars  as  their 
offspring.  When  killing  an  animal  the  Negritos  fling  a  piece  heavenwards  crying 
out  at  the  same  time,  "  This  too  for  thee  "  ;  and  they  sacrifice  pigs  to  the  thunder. 
In  Timorlaut  the  chief  deity  is  transferred  into  the  sun  while  his  female  comple- 
ment resides  in  the  earth.  For  a  lunar  eclipse,  as  the  saying  goes  the  serpent  has 
eaten  the  moon,  the  temples  are  decorated  and  young  girls  have  to  lament  the 
dying  of  the  moon  while  the  bystanders  laugh  and  joke  ;  noise  is  also  made  to 
induce  the  monster  to  disgorge.  In  the  moon  they  see  a  tree  which  is  either  a 
phantom  of  Allah  or  a  cloudiness  brought  about  by  the  angel  Gabriel.  Sun  and 
moon  were  originally  of  equal  brightness,  falling  stars  are  called  shots  from  the 
bow,  the  morning  star  the  day's  tooth.  In  the  rainbow  the  Mussulmans  see  a 
strip  of  Satan's  mantle,  and  the  Negritos  offer  prayers  to  it  as  to  the  thunder,  while 
in  Ternate  it  is  believed  to  increase  the  number  of  fish. 

Earthquakes  result  either  from  the  shaking  of  the  giant  bull  on  whose  horns 
the  earth  rests,  or  from  the  writhing  o{  Naga,  the  same  serpent  who  causes  the  eclipses 
of  the  moon.  Subterranean  fire  is  embodied  in  evil  spirits,  from  whom  a  beneficent 
bird  in  Ternate  called  leo  steals  the  fire  in  order  to  bring  it  to  men,  although  he 
singes  his  wings  in  so  doing. 

Mythological  elements  are  copiously  represented  both  in  the  dynastic  legends 
with  which  the  pre-historic  period  is  filled,  and  in  beast  legends  also.  Swan  maidens 
stand  at  the  foot  of  the  family  tree  of  Ternate  ;  Skarbas,  one  of  seven  winged 
heavenly  sisters,  was  surprised  on  her  way  to  the  bath  by  a  prince  and  bore  him 
children  who  afterwards  reigned  in  Ternate,  Tidor,  and  Bachan.  In  one  variation, 
given  by  Valentyn,  it  takes  the  following  form  :  the  kings  of  Tidor  and  Bachan 
were  born  from  dragon's  eggs,  and  for  that  reason  the  sultan  of  Bachan  bears  the 
figure  of  his  dragon  ancestor.  A  more  commonplace  version  of  the  family  legend 
is  that  in  which  a  princess  of  Ternate  having  been  wooed  by  Tidor,  but  found  not 
to  be  a  maiden  and  accordingly  sent  adrift  on  a  raft,  became  the  ancestress  of  the 
royal  family  of  Bachan.  There  is  a  legend,  going  still  further  back,  according  to 
which  the  first  prince  of  Lolada  came  into  existence  with  the  beginning  of  the 
first  rustling  of  the  wind.  He  arose  from  a  tree  stem  which  good  spirits  drove 
from  the  shore,  and  is  therefore  called  "  he  who  came  out  of  the  water."  The 
forest-dwelling  Bajus  believe  that  the  hero  son  of  the  realm  of  Padjajaran  will 
some  day  take  them  back  again  when  he  has  descended  from  heaven,  to  which  he 
went  up. 

After  death  the  souls  go  into  a  future  world,  where  there  is  what  is  called  by 
the    Dyaks  "  Sabyan,"  a    city  of  souls  ;  by  the   Alfurs    of  the    Eastern    Islands 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MALAYS  479 

"  Soroga  "  or  "  Sorga,"  a  house  of  spirits.     The  first  aim  of  the  great  funeral  feasts 

is  to  facilitate  the  soul's  way  thither.      The  soul   is   not  tied  to  that  spirit  home, 

indeed  its  stay  there  seems  to  be  limited.     Thus   the    Maanjans   say  the   soul 

returns  again  after  seven  generations.  '    If  a  woman  with  child  has  a  longing  for 

a  sour  fruit,  it  means  that  a  soul  from  the  next  world  wishes  to  enter  into  her  in 

order  to  be  born  again  as  a  man.     They  believe,  further,  that  a  future  state  is 

like  this  world,  and  a  supreme  god,  Apu,  has  power  over  all  spirits  and  exercises 

unlimited  rule  in  the  invisible  world.     There  is  a  good  spirit  who  is 

either  son  of  the  supreme  god  or  a  beautiful  woman.     To  his  care 

all  souls   are    entrusted   at   the  funeral   feast,    and    he    escorts    them 

into   the  next   world.       The   way  thither  leads   over   the   sea,  and 

therefore  coffins  are  made  in  boat  form,  and  toy  boats  are  set  near 

to   the  grave-.       The  sea  is  also  conceived  as  a  sea  of  fire   under 

which  a  road  goes.       To  meet  the  dangers  which  beset  the  entry 

into  Paradise   a   man   has  weapons  given  to  him,  and,  if  he  was  a 

person  of  distinction,  a  suite  of  slaves.      Means  of  bribery  must  also 

not  be  lacking.      In  the  middle  of  the  narrow  path  stands  the  great 

savage  dog,  Maweang,  and  woe  to  him  who  is  not  provided  with  a 

little  telak  bead.      The  exaggerated  expense  of  the  boisterous  funeral 

processions,   by   which    many  families    are   ruined,  are  supposed    to 

be  of  benefit  to  the  dead  person,  who  indeed,  among  the  Dyaks,  has 

already  in  his  lifetime   caused   the  clothing  and  equipment  for  his 

corpse  to  be  prepared  from  the  most  costly  material  ;  only  slaves  are 

buried  without  singing  and  noise.      The  souls  of  the   Igorrotes  travel 

to  two  places,  he  who  dies  of  a   natural   death  goes   northward  to 

Cadungayan  ;  here  the  souls  dwell  in  a  forest,  the  trees  of  which  turn 

to  huts  at  the  approach  of  darkness.       They  also  possess  gardens 

and   draw    their  sustenance    from  the  invisible  component  parts  of 

animals,  from    rice,   and   from   the    offerings  of  their  relatives.      For 

this  reason,  also,  in    North  Borneo  some  sago  palms  are  felled  for 

every  person  who  dies,  and  the  wine  which  the  living  drink  at  the  Rosa^ry^     wit^i 

funeral  feast  serves   equally    for   his  refreshment.       The  man    who     Madagascar  — 

commits  robbery  and  murder  without  reason  is  punished  there  if  he     °f^^ ; '^^j^gj^^f^ 

has  died  without  undergoing  a  penalty,  and   punished  too  by  being     Museum.) 

pierced  with  a  lance  by  another  soul.     But  the  souls  of  all  those 

who  have  lost  their  lives  by  a  spear  wound  or  in   any  other  violent  manner,  as 

well  as  women  who  have  died  in  child-birth,  arrive   at   a  more   desirable  place, 

the  residence  of  the  gods.      The   Malagasies  hold  that  their  souls  go  into  the  air 

or  on  to  the  mountain,  Ambongdrombe  in  the  Betsileo  country,  which  excites  fear 

with  its  cloud-wrapped  summit  and  the  roaring  of  the  storms.      In  their  language 

we  find  echoes  of  a  better  hereafter ;  dead  people  are  said  to  have  gone  to  rest, 

among  the  Hovas  indeed  to  have  become  divine. 

The  amalgamation  of  Indian,  Chinese,  and  Mussulman  notions  with  the 
inherited  religion  has  had  the  effect  not  of  clearing,  but  rather  of  increasing 
and  confusing  the  vast  body  of  superstitions.  In  the  mythologies  of  the 
Indian  Archipelago,  which  have  adopted  elements  from  Buddhism  and  Brah- 
manism,  there  appear  reminiscences  of  ancient  Phoenician  and  Babylonish 
conceptions    as  well  as   affinities   to   those   newly  learnt  from    Polynesia.      Just 


48o 


THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


as,  even  in  progressive  Java,  the  old  cult  of  souls  and  a  natUre-worship  without 
limits  have  maintained  themselves  side  by  side  with  relics  of  Brahmanism  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  Buddha-worshippers,  so  do  the  more  refined  forms  of 
astrology  and  necromancy  stand  with  every  kind  of  intervening  stage  beside 
crude  superstition.  The  talent  for  religion  which  we  extolled  in  the  Polynesians 
is  also  characteristic  of  the  Malays.      Just  as   in  the   Archipelago  hundreds  of 


Rainitsontsoraica — a  Christian  martyr  in  Madagascar.     (After  Ellis. ) 

thousands  have  become  fanatical  Mussulmans,  so  has  Madagascar  become, 
through  the  Hovas,  a  very  stronghold  of  Christianity  in  the  East ;  for  all 
the  Hovas,  to  the  number  of  800,000,  have  become  professed  Christians. 
The  fact  that  the  majority  are  Protestants,  and  the  Catholics  numerically 
weak  in  comparison,  was  a  main  reason  of  the  inefficiency  of  the  first  French 
"  protectorate." 

Since  among  the  lower  races  the  influence  of  the  priestly  class  is  proportioned 
to  the  mass  of  superstitions,  we  may  decidedly  anticipate  that  the  priests 
will  here  hold  a  conspicuous'  position  ;  even  though  the  endless  subdivisions 
of  religion,  by  allowing  no  central  form  of  worship  and  no  hierarchy,  organised 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MALAYS  481 

as  a  unit,  to  grow  up  is  outwardly  detrimental  to  their  status.  The  Igorrote 
seers  are  usually  the  boldest  and  most  cunning  scamps  of  their  tribe,  who 
utilise  their  influence  for  the  filling  of  their  own  stomachs.  The  only  mark 
of  their  profession  worn  by  them  in  their  religious  functions  is  a  necklace  of 
alligators'  teeth  or  boa's  tusks.  Their  ceremonies  consist  of  grimaces,  dislocations 
of  the  joints  fit  to  make  your  hair  stand  on  end,  and  mimicry  of  what  they 
have  seen  the  missionaries  do  in  divine  service.  Among  most  of  the  Dyak 
tribes  they  are  notoriously  immoral.  Another  bad  sort  of  priests  are  the  people 
who  profess  to  have  come  down  from  heaven.  These  are  men  and  women  of  great 
influence,  who  have  often  become  politically  dangerous,  when  they  have  given 
themselves  out  as  descendants  of  ancient  princely  families,  and  have  appealed  to 
the  sympathies  of  the  mob. 

Among  several  tribes  in  Borneo  and  the  Eastward  Islands  priestesses  form  a 
highly  developed   institution,  which   has    been    imported   by  the   Dyaks   to   the 
genuine  Malays.      The  Vadians  of  South-east  Borneo,  with  a  presiding  Vadian  at 
their  head,  a  dignity  which  passes  by  inheritance  from  the  mother  to  the  daughter, 
represent  a  purer  form  than  the  Blians  of  the  true  Dyaks,  who  are  at  the  same 
time  occasionally  loose  women.     Among  the  Maanjans  any  woman  is  free  to  become 
a  Vadian,  but  she  has  to  pay  a  fee  to  learn  the  correct  phrases.      It  is  only  upon  the 
greater  festivals  that  a  special  costume  is  worn  ;  the  head  is  adorned  with  a  frontlet 
with  tinsel  sown  upon  it,  while  a  sarong  fastened  across  the  bosom  is  held  together  by 
a  girdle.      On  forehead,  cheeks,  nape,  breast,  calves,  and  shins,  round  spots,  crosses, 
and  stripes  are  drawn  with  rice  meal,  and  two  bells  in  the  fashion  of  amulets  adorn 
the  arms.      Besides  this  the  younger  Vadians  wear  in  their  hair  the  lancet-shaped 
leaves  of  a  palmetto,  supposed  to  have  sprung  from  the  ashes  of  a  deceased  member 
of  their  body  ;  at  other  times  their  dress  is  simpler.     The  form  of  their  conjuration 
is  everywhere  alike  ;  the  elements  of  their  action  are  ecstatic  dances,  the  sacrifice 
of  a  fowl,  and,  where  a  sick  person  is  to  be  healed,  the  extraction,  cleansing,  and 
re-insertion  of  the  soul,  for  all  which  they  are  prepared  by  fumigation  with  aromatic 
herbs  which  are  laid  under  their  sleeping-places. .    In  order  to  reinforce  the  con- 
juration in  cases  of  sickness  the  Vadian  in  Celebes  dances  on  a  narrow  plank  ; 
her  movements  in  this  are  so  energetic  that  any  one  must  wonder  at  her  power, 
—the  sweat  falls  in  great  drops  from  her  face,  which  is  contorted  in  such  a  way  as 
to  portray  physical  strain  and  convulsion.      These  women  are  considered  to  be  in 
close  relations  with  the  spirit  of  the  earth.     Patients  suffering  from  slight  disorders 
are  cured  in  great  numbers  together.      If  a  disease  spreads,  general  mstructions  for 
expiation  are  given  out.      In  that  case  no  bufl-alo,  goat,  horse,  or  fowl  may  be  killed 
in  a  district,  no  bamboo  cut,  no  tree  felled,  no  fruit  gathered   or  crop  harvested, 
while  at  last  even  the  penalties  are  increased  for  offences  which  hitherto  have  been 
more  leniently  judged.     The  worst  spirits  of  all  can  only  ba  approached  at  night, 
and  if  all  means  fail  one  may  see  standing  solitary  at  the  cross  roads  some  candles 
beside  a  basket  containing  rice,  sirih,  and  pastry. 

In  Halmahera  children  watch  beside  the  meal  of  dyed  rice  set  for  the  good 
spirits,  and  on  board  ship  a  boy  watches,  having  on  one  side  of  him  the  ingenious 
water-clock  and  on  the  other  the  protecting  fetish.  Life  is  filled,  fettered,  and 
penetrated  with  ghosts  in  such  a  manner  that  possession  is  not  very  far  off  ;  no 
epidemic,  no  sickness,  no  mishap,  takes  place  without  the  tongues  of  men  being 
prophetically  set   in    motion   by  spirits.       On    such   occasions   also   the  heaven- 


2   I 


482  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

descended  ones  crop  up  as  deceivers,  honest  or  dishonest ;  a  means  of  averting 
misfortune  is  frequently  revealed  to  some  elect  one  in  a  dream. 

No  concentration  upon  special  places  of  worship  having  taken  place,  real 
temples  are  unknown  though  sacred  places  are  numerous.  Thus  among  the 
Macassarese  and  Bugises  the  sacred  objects  of  the  tribe  have  a  shrine  of  their 
own  as  well  as  a  special  sacrificing  shrine.  In  Halmahera,  Tidor,  and  Ternate, 
the  shrine  when  a  sacrifice  of  food  is  offered  stands  near  the  town  hall,  and 
whenever  practicable  commands  the  entrance  to  the  village  and  scares  away  the 
evil  spirits.  In  the  villages  of  Sahu  there  are  four  spirit-shrines — one  for  male 
spirits,  one  for  females,  one  common  to  all,  and  one  for  the  priest's  oracular  sleep. 
Every  Maanjan  keeps  curiosities  calculated  to  have  a  religious  effect  in  a  little 
shrine  dedicated  to  the  god  of  thunder.  Sacrificial  shrines  are  erected  near  large 
trees  and  rocks,  and  at  the  entrances  to  caves.  Every  grave,  too,  is  a  place  of 
veneration,  especially  while  it  is  new ;  and  finally,  reverence  is  extended  to  whole 
districts  which  are  imagined  to  be  inhabited  by  spirits,  to  dark  forests,  inaccessible 
swamps,  and  certain  thickly-wooded  hills.  Many  things  again  must  not  be  used 
here  if  sacred  to  evil  spirits,  and  not  insulted  if  sacred  to  the  good  :  they  are  pali 
or  fadi — unpermitted.  Temples  have  been  erected  through  Indian  influence  in ' 
the  Malay  archipelago  whose  magnificence  astounds  posterity,  but  they  are  to-day 
forgotten  and  fallen  to  ruin.  Islam  has  never  reached  this  point,  all  it  has  to 
show  being  some  poor  mosques  ;  these  missigits;  as  they  are  called,  are  both 
within  and  without  extremely  simple,  usually  put  together  of  wood.  The  roofs, 
thatched  with  reeds,  are  sharp,  rising  here  or  there  three,  four,  or  five  feet  above 
one  another  like  towers.  Very  seldom  is  a  tower  or  minaret  {ineinara)  met  with. 
A  drum  summons  the  faithful  to  prostrate  themselves  in  or  out  of  the  temples. 
Everywhere  by  the  entrances  are  found  large  water-pots  for  the  customary 
washing ;  and  inside  the  building  a  niche  in  a  western  angle  points  to  the 
direction  of  Mecca  and  of  prayer. 

Deaths  and  funerals  are  the  occasions  of  great  solemnities  among  the 
Malays  ;  prayers  are  offered  on  behalf  of  the  soul  which  is  making  ready  for  the 
difficult  voyage  to  the  next  world,  or  has  already  got  there ;  but  above  all, 
uproarious  and  long-lasting  festivities  are  celebrated.  These  have  even  power 
to  call  the  soul  back  ;  for  there  is  a  kind  of  death  which  may  be  made  to  retreat.. 
Even  among  the  poor  Ilongotes,  some  few  provisions  for  the  journey  into  eternity 
are  laid  upon  the  grave.  At  a  subsequent  ceremony,  the  mourners  eat  and  drink 
the  victuals  and  palm-wine  of  the  deceased.  Among  the  Battaks,  while  the  other 
chief  epochs  of  life — birth,  maturity,  marriage — pass  without  any  very  special 
ceremony,  the  body  of  a  dead  person  is  the  object  of  particular  solicitude.  In 
Holontalo,  for  forty  days  after  the  death  of  a  relative,  wealthy  persons  run  daily  to 
strew  his  grave  with  money  and  flowers.  The  semi-settled  Dutch  Dyaks  announce 
the  moment  of  the  soul's  departure  from  the  body  by  firing  a  cannon,  while  the 
Sulus  perform  the  obsequies  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  grisly  show,  the  relatives 
having  previously  lamented  for  the  space  of  eight  days  in  a  hut  above  the  grave. 
Among  the  Milanos  of  Borneo,  the  friends  assemble  some  months  after  the  death 
at  a  mighty  feast  and  cockfight,  which  lasts  three  or  four  days  and  costs  the  life 
of  as  many  hundred  cocks.  The  Alfurs  of  Halmahera  celebrate  their  funeral  feasts 
for  a  month  or  more  on  end.  Many  a  man  is  impoverished  by  them,  and  has  to 
go  abroad  to  earn  money,  which  he  may  spend  later  on  at  some  new  festival  ; 


THE    RELIGION  OF   THE   MALAYS  '  483 

he  may  then  say  with  justice — "  The  aim  of  my  life  is  to  perform  my  adat,  or 
customary  duties." 

Among  some  natives  of  Borneo  also  there  are  funeral  feasts,  seven  days  long, 
at  which  men  are  sacrificed,  or,  if  these  cannot  be  got,  buffaloes.     Slaves  are  bought 
for  the  purpose,  dressed  in  the  clothes  of  the  deceased,  and  tortured  to  death.     Some 
wealthy  persons,  indeed,  before  their  deaths,  send  some  slaves  on  into  the  next 
world.     To  these  festivals  belong  the  toping-g3.me  of  the  Battaks,  at  which  one 
of  the  players   sticks  a  bottle-gourd  with  two  eyeholes  in  it  over  his  head,  while 
the  other  covers  himself  over  with  a  red  cloth,  and  draws  on  a  four-sided  casing 
of  bamboo  laths,  open  at  both  ends,  and  reaching  from  the  navel  to  below  the 
arms.     To  the  player's  middle  is  attached  a  long  movable  pole,  at  the  top  of 
which  is  fastened,  with  two  strings,  the  head  of  a  hornbill.      This  he  holds  in  his 
hand  ;  and  behind  he  has  a  tail   made  of  old  clouts,  so  that  his  whole  figure 
suggests  a  hornbill.      The  two  then  play  off  their  jokes  among  the  company,  ask 
for  sirih,  and  frighten  the  ladies.     Sometimes  one  of  the  toping-^la.ye.'cs  ties  on  a 
wooden  mask  with  the  features  of  the  deceased.      In   Nias  it  was  usual  to  make 
a  slave  swallow  his  master's  putrefied  flesh  till  he  was  suffocated  ;  then  his  head 
was  cut  off  and  he  was  sent  to  follow  him.     At  these  feasts,  buffaloes  are  tied  to 
a  stake  wreathed  with  boughs  and  flowers,  and  pierced  through  the  heart  with  a 
spear ;  from  the  way  in  which  the  animal  falls  the   Gurus  prophesy  good  or  ill- 
luck  to  the  kampong.      The  Sihongos  of  Borneo  hold  feasts  for  a  week,  and  burn 
a  number  of  corpses,  which  are  saved  up  from  one  feast  to  the  next.     As  each 
coffin   is  put  into  the  fire,  the  priestesses  raise  loud   lamentations.     The  ashes 
are    then     placed    in     the    family    vaults,  which    stand    on    poles.      Seven   days 
after  the  feast  the  concluding  ceremony  takes  place,  at  which  a  phallic  statue 
is  erected,  and  the  participants  smear  themselves  with  the  blood  of  the  sacrificed 

animals. 

The  Malagasies,  too,  fear  to  irritate  the  souls  of  the  departed,  if  corpse  and 
grave  are  not  treated  with  great  ceremony.  At  least  a  bit  of  the  dead  person 
must  be  buried  as  the  law  directs.  The  house  of  the  deceased  is  visited  by  his 
friends,  and  a  large  part  of  his  oxen  slaughtered  before  it,  and  .used  for  banquets 
lasting  for  weeks.  Music  and  dancing  play  an  important  part.  The  nearest 
relations  sit  on  the  ground,  by  the  deathbed,  weeping ;  while  some  keep  flies  and 
evil  influences  off  with  fans  adorned  with  scarlet.  The  women  wear  dark 
garments  of  coarse  material,  and  dishevelled  hair.  The  corpse  is  borne  to  the 
grave  on  a  bier,  accompanied  by  the  mourners,  with  music  and  musket-finng. 
It  is  usual  to  inter  in  a  grave  pointing  north  or  east.  When  people  die  abroad 
they  are  brought  home  for  burial ;  but  if  the  body  cannot  be  got,  a  bunch  of 
their  hair  is  buried.  Similar  customs  prevail  among  the  Sakalavas.  The  corpse 
is  washed  and  fumigated  with  m^^^^-wood,  thumbs  and  great  toes  are  tied 
together  with  fibres  of  rafia,  and  the  hands  laid  in  the  lap  ;  clothes  are  laid  as 
an  additional  gift,  and  the  dead  man's  iron  implements  are  set  up  on  the  grave. 
A  curse  is  further  pronounced  on  whosoever  may  have  caused  his  death^  ihe 
grave  is  marked  by  a  heap  of  stones,  or  a  single  stone,  block,  or  piUar  Persons 
of  importance  have  graves  of  large  dimensions,  made,  among  the  Sakalavas,  ot 
sandstone  slabs,  five  yards  in  length  and  two  in  height.  Passers-by  enlarge  the 
heap  by  throwing  stones  on  it.  Among  some  tribes  the  heads  of  the  oxen 
slaughtered  for  the  funeral   carouse   are  stuck   on   poles   near  the  grave  ;   while 


4S4  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

among  the  Hovas  we  find  little  coloured  flags  on  them.  Chiefs  are  often  buried 
in  the  middle  of  their  villages.  Burial-places  are  always  fadi;  though  in  the 
Hova  country  we  often  hear  of  plundered  graves.  Descendants  like  best  to  be 
buried  near -their  ancestors.  At  the  anniversary,  the  Hovas  visit  the  graves  in 
mourning.   • 

Everywhere  we  recognise  the  fundamental  idea  of  an  interval  being  reserved 
in  which  the  soul  may  rest  while  preparing  for  its  journey  into  the  next  world  ; 
as  well  as  that  of  a  return  of  the  soul  to  the  place  where  its  body  lies.  The 
modes  of  burial  adopted  are  based  partly  on  practical  considerations,  partly  on 
supernatural  suggestions  received  in  dreams. 

Cremation  occurs,  but  interment  is  more  common.  In  Sumatra  the  bodies 
are  laid  in  a  side  chamber  annexed  to  the  grave ;  among  the  Lampongs,  the 
grave  is  provided  with  a  high  cover,  upon  which  a  mound  is  made,  and 
two  octagonal  pieces  of  wood  erected.  In  Borneo  graves  are  found  rising  in 
steps,  with  a  platform  on  the  top,  crowned  with  a  shrine,  in  which  implements 
belonging  to  the  deceased  are  placed.  Here  it  is  usual  to  plant  a  si'rong-pa.\m 
beside  the  grave,  while  in  Halmahera  a  nosegay  is  laid  at  the  head  and  foot. 
Clouts  are  hung  over  the  grave  for  the  demon  to  play  with.  Interment  among 
the  Battaks  is  different  and  simpler.  Quite  little  children  are  buried  under  the 
houses  ;  children  below  the  age  of  puberty  are  laid  away  with  little  ceremony  in 
small  coffins,  in  the  family  ash  or  bone-house. 

With  many  tribes  the  interment  is  only  temporary.  After  some  years, 
with  the  view  of  showing  higher  respect  to  their  forefathers,  they  dig  up  their 
remains  and  place  them  in  an  above-ground  tomb,  serving  at  the  same  time  as 
monument.  This  is  the  older  practice,  which  afterwards  was  curtailed  owing  to 
stinginess  or  indolence.  Adults  constantly  receive  a  first  funeral  above  ground. 
The  Alfurs  of  the  east  manage  this  in  a  simpler  fashion  than  the  western  Malays. 
In  Ceram  they  tie  up  a  person  when  just  dead,  often  when  dying,  into  a  bundle 
like  a  sheaf,  roll  him  into  the  forest,  and  put  him  away  among  the  branches  of 
trees,  with  the  view  of  collecting  his  bones  later  on.  Among  them  the  wish  to 
keep  the  corpse  at  a  distance  is  clearly  apparent.  Among  the  Alfurs  of 
Minnahassa  also,  the  original  practice  was  to  wrap  the  corpse  in  bast  and  keep 
it  among  the  boughs  of  the  tallest  trees  ;  but  the  custom  of  burying  in  orna- 
mented sarcophagi  or  tiwukar  is  said  to  have  been  introduced  by  another  tribe 
shortly  before  the  arrival  of  the  Europeans.  Among  the  Battaks,  on  the  contrary, 
the  body  is  wrapped  in  cloths  and  furnished  with  the  usual  presents,  richer  tribes 
placing  money  on  the  eyes  or  mouth,  that  the  soul  may  be  able  to  buy  some- 
thing for  itself  on  its  way.  After  this  the  corpse  is  laid  in  a  rough  coffin, 
usually  a  clumsy  canoe,  oars  forming  a  present  to  be  put  into  the  grave.  The 
Maanjans  even  place  beside  the  body  all  the  objects  of  value  to  be  found  in  the 
house,  and  the  Guinans  present  a  wooden  torch  for  the  dark  road.  They  also 
often  sprinkle  the  corpse  with  rice,  salt,  or  camphor,  and  allow  the  blood  of  a 
red  cock  to  drip  on  it.  The  Dyaks  dye  the  soles  of  the  feet  with  turmeric,  then 
the  cover  is  shut  up  tight,  and  the  coffin  is  left  standing  some  days  amid  the 
lamentations  of  the  priestesses  or  the  old  women  in  the  hut,  or  under  a  special 
shed,  and  food  is  set  every  night  for  the  body,  which  often  stays  many  years  above 
ground.  The  length  of  time  depends  upon  the  view  taken  as  to  the  destiny  of 
the   soul,   as  well  as  upon  considerations  as  to  the  sum  required  for  the  final 


THE  RELIGION  OF   THE  MALAYS  485 


ceremony,  and  also  upon  the  rank  of  the  deceased.  Among  the  Lampongs 
chiefs  are  displayed  in  state  on  the  3rd,  7th,  40th,  looth,  and  'i  000th  day,  and 
then  every  year,  according  to  the  day  of  death,  funeral  feasts  are  held,  at  which 
spices,  flowers,  and  other  nice  things  are  offered  to  the  dead,  and  the  coco-nut 
cup  with  a  cooling  drink  is  hung  over  the  coffin.  The  Alfurs  of  the  Eastern 
Islands  offer  the  first-fruits  of  their  fishery  at  burial  places.  Among  the  Milanos 
of  Borneo  the  custom  is  found  of  burying  the  coffin  for  three  days  with  weapons, 
«W/«-boxes,  bronze  cannons,  money,  and  clothes,  during  which  time  the  dead 
man  equips  himself  for  his  journey.  But  here,  too,  at  least  so  much  of  a  chiefs 
body  as  remains  after  the  process  of  decay  is  placed  in  an  urn  and  put  away  in 
a  hollow  post  of  iron-wood  beautifully  carved;  since  the  wood  of  these 
monuments  is  almost  indestructible,  they  date  from  generations  back.  Some- 
times the  above-ground  tomb  takes  the  shape  of  a  boat,  as  in  the  illustration  on 
p.  63.  Many  of  the  Battaks  take  little  care  of  what  remains  after  cremation. 
Ashes  and  earth  are  swept  up  together  and  put  into  a  round  wooden  receptacle 
which  is  buried  in  the  forest  and  little  more  trouble  taken  with  it,  only  the  spot 
is  kept  tidy. 

Among  the  Sihongos  of  Borneo  there  is  another  practice  connected  with  the 
preservation  of  the  body  which  we  meet  with  also  in  Madagascar.  The  coffin 
is  put  on.  a  stage  and  a  hole  bored  in  the  body,  into  which  is  cemented  a 
bamboo  with  its  lower  end  in  the  orifice  of  a  large  earthen  pot.  Into  this  all 
the  fluid  portions  of  the  body  as  it  decays  are  collected  ;  on  the  forty-ninth 
day  the  pot  is  removed  with  great  clamour.  The  practice  of  drinking  the 
contents,  under  the  notion  that  the  soul  resides  in  them,  has  survived  only  in 
traces  ;  pot  and  coffin  are  firmly  cemented  up,  and  remain  in  the  house  till  the 
funeral  feast. 

The  period  between  the  decease  and  the  final  disposal  of  the  body  which  is  to 
give  rest  to  the  perturbed  soul,  is  regarded  as  critical  in  every  Malay  village. 
From  the  moment  at  which  a  shot,  or  muffled  drum  taps  following  at  regular 
intervals,  announce  a  death,  a  village  is  unclean.  At  first  the  times  of  day  are  in 
some  degree  inverted.  Starting  from  the  notion  that  the  souls  of  the  dead, 
especially  those  who  have  departed  suddenly  or  owing  to  a  misfortune,  love 
to  do  mischief  until  the  funeral  feast  is  held  and  that  the  night  is  their  day, 
everybody  who  wants  to  leave  the  village  must  do  so  before  sunrise ;  if  he  goes 
later  he  may  speak  to  no  one — everybody  avoids  him.  The  women  veil  their 
faces  and  intone  the  death  dirge ;  the  death  is  regarded  as  a  loss  for  the 
whole  village,  showing  plainly  the  intimate  connection  of  the  tribe.  For  this 
reason,  also,  great  importance  is  laid  upon  the  death  taking  place  in  the  village, 
and  under  all  circumstances  the  body  must  be  brought  thither,  and  if  this  is  not 
possible,  the  clothing. 

External  signs  of  mourning  are  shaven  heads,  white  turbans  among  the 
Mussulmans  of  the  Sulu  Islands,  the  veiling  of  the  head  in  the  case  of  the  mourning 
women.  Among  the  Maanjans  the  relatives  must  eat  no  rice  for  forty-nine  days 
— seven  only  if  the  mourning,  is  for  a  child' — but  they  must  content  themselves 
with  a  grain  of  brown  colour  and  unpleasant  taste  and  smell.  Names  of  dead 
people  are  never  to  be  uttered.  Among  certain  tribes,  too,  even  living  people 
never  utter  their  own  names,  it  is  fadi,  and  if  anybody  inquires  it,  the  reply  is 
given  by  some  other  than  the  person  asked.      It  is  quite  a  trait  in  the  character 


486  THE  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 

of   the  Hovas   that    they  anxiously  endeavour    to  avoid    thinking    of   departed 
persons.  "    ^ 

Human  sacrifices  were  no  doubt  once  universally  connected  with  funerals. 
Among  the  Milanos  a  slave  was  starved  to  death  in  the  most  cruel  manner, 
attached  to  the  post  of  the  sepulchre,  in  order  that  he  might  be  all  ready  to  attend 
his  master  in  the  next  world.  At  the  toping-'^X^y  of  the  Battaks  in  former  times, 
two  slaves  used  to  come  on  as  performers  when  the  coffin  was  already  standing  at 
the  grave ;  in  the  midst  of  their  buffooneries  they  were  killed,  their  corpses  laid  at 
the  head  and  foot  of  the  grave,  and  the  coffin  placed  on  the  top  of  them.  Hagen 
even  connects  cannibalism  with  these  rites  ;  the  greatest  insult  was  offered  to  a 
person  guilty  of  grievous  crime,  or  to  a  mortally  hated  foe,  by  annihilating  his  body 
in  the  most  thorough  and  dishonouring  manner  possible,  which  would  be  by 
devouring  him.  Doubtless,  also,  fear  of  the  restless  spirit  of  the  slain  may  have 
made  the  practice  universal,  so  that  by  eating  in  common  all  might  be  bound 
together  as  accessories. 


END   OF   VOL.    I 


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